


Casualties of War

by RiverWolf



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Depression, Gen, Platonic Life Partners, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 19:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1755351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverWolf/pseuds/RiverWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disillusioned and confused after the events surrounding the death of CT-5555 "Fives", it's not long before Captain Rex finds himself doubting the Republic that he was told he was born to serve. Unable to shut out the warnings of his fallen brother and the way they suddenly seem to make unsettling events click into place, Rex does something he'd never imagined possible -- he deserts and goes in search of the only other person he knows who might understand the pain of estrangement from duty: Ahsoka Tano. Refugees of the war, Ahsoka and Rex make their way to Dantooine in the hopes of lying low and starting to put their lives back together, but peace is short-lived. They receive news that shatters their world, and find themselves fighting in a war much, much closer to home...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU which takes place just after Order 66 was issued and is an effort to understand the impact war would have had on the growth of Rex and Ahsoka, both of whom were young during the battles that took place. What happens to a Jedi when she is suffering from depression and the effects of PTSD? How does a Clone deal with the loss of his brothers? While both have lives ahead of them, both must learn to live. Told from the perspectives of both Rex and Ahsoka. I hope you enjoy it!

There were moments, Rex noticed, in which Ahsoka seemed to vanish. Dantooine was a quiet place compared to the pulsating life of Coruscant -- a change which had seemed unsettling to him with the roar of blaster fire still ringing in his ears -- but it was a change he knew they both needed. For the sake of their safety, relocation to a quiet, Outer Rim planet had been necessary. A well known Jedi and a deserter Clone, damned to a fugitive life the day the Order was issued. Rex remembered that day well. They'd settled into life on Dantooine almost a Galactic Standard Year ago, and they'd both made an effort to avoid the holonet and pick up the pieces of their lives. It was better that way, they'd decided, and they'd settled into helping the settlers with odd jobs. They'd pooled their credits and invested in a little farm of their own, and Rex remembered the day they'd walked through the door into their barren little home on the edge of a grass sea and laughed, filled with joy and ease and a sense of profound freedom. Ahsoka had been radiant that day, and he remembered the shimmer of hope in her bright eyes as she took her first look around. She still smiled back then.

He remembered the way the smile had drained from her, the day the Order was issued. They'd been on their way home from picking up some supplies, and Ahsoka had been maintaining a spirited trot to match his long stride, telling him about how she was _sure_ she heard a young kath hound in the woods bordering their land, and how she _knew_ she could train it if he'd help her catch it. He'd been mid-laughing protest when her mischievous smile evaporated. Rex remembered everything that followed in painful detail. He remembered the choking gasp that escaped from her chest, and the sound the crates she was carrying made as they dropped and shattered. He remembered the way the unbidden tears shimmered in her eyes, and the sickening crunch as she collapsed over the jagged, shattered crates clutching at her chest. But mostly, he remembered the way each and every muscle in his soldier's body coiled and tensed in response to crippling terror as he ran to her side, laughter turning to ashes in his mouth.

Her injuries had been minor, and her body healed quickly. Scrapes and bruises were nothing to Ahsoka, and they never had been. It had been a reaction to the Force, they discovered -- an instant in which their world crumbled, the Jedi burned, and the Republic they had both served collapsed. She'd felt the death of countless friends that day, and he'd been powerless to help. In the days that followed, Ahsoka seemed to fade before his eyes, although he couldn't entirely understand how. She'd stopped laughing and her eyes had lost the sparkle he'd loved so dearly. He wished he could help her somehow, take some of the burden from her shoulders which suddenly seemed so slight, but he was waging a war in his own mind, and exhaustion was wearing him down. The blow that had silenced Ahsoka's friends was dealt by _his_ brothers -- the brothers he never should have left. The thought haunted him, burning under his skin and behind his eyes as he tried to sleep. Foreign, stray thoughts tore through his consciousness and shook him to his core. He remembered a time before when the Jedi were his friends, but he felt an anger building inside him that he didn't understand.

It was Ahsoka that brought him back. He'd tried to respect the sound of her silence and her need for distance. Jedi -- the word made the hair on the back of his neck prickle and he pushed it quickly from his mind-- _Ahsoka_ had always had a need for privacy on occasion. He respected that, at least as far as he could. But the sound of her screams and muffled sobs had a way of echoing down the corridor of the little house, and he always heard them. It was agonizing listening to her suffer, and after too many nights lying wide awake, the sounds of her nightmares populating his mind with the faces of the dead he'd seen, he took a chance. Fully aware of the fact that emotional sensitivity had never been his strongest suit, Rex went to her, hoping to give her some peace. He remembered the bare, emptiness of her small room that night. She'd wanted the smallest one for herself, having no possessions to fill it with. All she had was a small, undecorated crate against the wall directly opposite her bed -- the place she'd carefully stored the clothes she'd been wearing the day she left the Order. Her lightsabers and her small, beaded braid stripped from her, they were all she had left. And that's where they'd remained. He'd felt a strange loneliness hanging in the air as he stood in the doorway, but he pushed through its barrier and sat at the edge of her bed, his hand hesitating just a moment before it gently brushed her cheek. It had been all she'd needed. He remembered the way her tears had stopped, and the way she nestled against his touch and fell silent. And he remembered the way she'd come to him the next night, her eyes wide and nervous, wrapped in a baggy tunic. He hadn't been certain what to do, or what propriety called for in this situation, but without superiors breathing down their necks, he figured there was nothing wrong with letting her stay. And so she had, and he'd let her curl into the space between his arm and his chest, and her breathing slowed down until it fell in sync with his own. For the time, it had been enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Rex stirred, feeling the nightmare dissolve from his mind as they always inevitably did. Despite the fact that his heart was still pounding, his eyes remained shut, exhaustion dominating the fading panic. He had no idea what time it was, and he didn't have the energy to check the chrono he always left by the bed, but he guessed it was some time in the early morning. He rolled over, thoughts drifting back out of focus, but the sensation of emptiness brought his awareness back. _Ahsoka_. The bed beside him was empty. Forcing strength into his body, Rex pulled himself up, and glanced around the room. She was gone, but it didn't surprise him much. She'd been restless ever since... he yawned and confirmed his suspicions with a quick glance at his chrono. It was just before dawn. Kicking the covers off, he rolled to the edge of the bed and got up, wrapping himself in the extra blanket at the foot of the bed. Ahsoka needed to be alone a lot these days-- the least he could do was check on her.

He found her outside, cross legged on the low wall that separated their little home from the plains, watching the moons set over a whispering grass sea. He left here there a moment, stopping by the kitchen to wait for the caf to brew, wishing he could find some of that stillness himself. He'd been finding it hard to keep still after they'd gotten the news, and his thoughts were fractured with impulses and thoughts that weren't his own. The impulses, the thoughts, the nightmares, the _Jedi_... the anger that trickled down his spine startled him, and he took a sip of caf to steady his hands. _I'm a soldier. I should have more discipline than this. At least, I was..._ Burying the thought for the time, he picked up the second cup and headed outside. _Ahsoka needs me, that's all that matters right now._

She was beautiful in the dawn glow. Rex knew the radiance was a trick of the Dantooine light, but he still admired the way her silhouette seemed to carve a place for itself amidst the emptiness of her surroundings. Despite the weight he knew she was carrying on her slender shoulders, she'd always had an admirable sort of _presence_. He approached her quietly and settled in beside her, slipping the cup of caf into her hands. She grasped it gratefully and turned her eyes up towards him, as if just noticing his presence.

"Rex... thank you. Couldn't sleep either, huh?"

Rex gave her a half smile and brushed the tip of her lekku gently.

"Not without you, I can't. And especially not now that I know you dug this old thing up from somewhere," he added, tugging playfully at the jacket she was wrapped in. It was one of his, an old black standard issue design with the Grand Army of the Republic's insignia emblazoned across the shoulders. "I thought we got rid of all that old stuff a long time ago."

Ahsoka smiled, a distant look in her eyes as she took a long sip of  the bitter caf.

"Sorry, Rexy. I know you're worried about being seen in it. I just couldn't let go of this one. There were too many memories in it. Things were... simpler..."

Rex has his doubts about that, but he kept them to himself, smiling to her gently and hoping that it came off encouraging.

"Ahsoka, I was kidding, of course you can keep the thing. Look around, I don't think we have to worry about anyone seeing it here!"

She sighed and seemed to shrink a little, and sensing her vulnerability, Rex couldn't ignore it. He ran his hand down her spine, settling it at the arch in the small of her back, and pulled her carefully into his arms. She gave no resistance, and allowed her head to fall against his shoulder. He could feel the expanse between them even in their closeness, and the familiar tightness in his chest returned as helplessness engulfed him. He bowed his head over hers, knowing that her species felt more than heard, and whispered her name against the smooth white skin of her montrals.

"Ahsoka..."

Her response was minimal, but it was enough. He knew she had heard him, somewhere from within the darkness she was living in. It was enough.

"Ahsoka, when are you going to let me onto this battlefield? You can't fight alone forever... please... let me help you..."

She shifted her head, her blue eyes meeting his. For a moment, he saw a flicker of agony, a glimpse of the terror that she felt. Ahsoka. But as soon as it had come, it flickered out. Ahsoka was gone. Commander Tano was stronger.

"There's nothing to talk about that you don't already know, Rexy."

She rose, the rustle of the loose tunic she wore imperceptible in the hush of the morning.

"Come on. Let's get back inside."

 

* * *

 

Subsistence, as it turned out, was a full-time pursuit. Rex yawned, slamming the lid of a small grain store shut and sliding back down to the floor of the agricultural unit. They didn't supply all of their own food, but as far as settlements on Dantooine were concerned, their operation was fairly self sufficient for two people. The little farm they'd invested in was a speeder's journey from Khoonda, one of Dantooine's main administrative centers, and they got shipments of grain, caf beans, and just about anything else they couldn't grow in the ground on a fairly regular basis. Rex threw a quick glance around the Ag unit one last time as he shut things down for the night to make sure nothing was out of place. The little routine was comforting somehow, despite the fact that it was something one of the droids could have easily done. Running maintenance himself gave Rex a small sliver of control over his life -- something he was having difficulty finding elsewhere since the Orders came through. The thought sent a little shiver running down his spine as it always did, and he let the sensation run its course in his moment of privacy as he locked down for the night. Stepping out into the evening air was a relief somehow. He watched the twin moons rise as he waited for the generators to finish cycling down, indulging the doubt in the back of his mind.

_Was it worth it? For this?_

It was a warm evening, but he still felt cold. The Orders had come about a Galactic Standard Month ago, but it still felt surreal to him. His mind strayed back across the stars to his brothers -- the one's he'd deserted -- and he wondered if the only family he'd known had been worth trading for a bit of Outer Rim dirt. He wondered how they'd handled their darkest battle, and which of them had survived. Of all of the wars he'd expected to fight, Rex had never believed that they'd be betrayed by the _Jedi_. He and his brothers had _died_ for them and the Republic they served!

Rex stopped himself, realizing he'd been pacing, and took a deep breath. There they were again. The intensity of the emotions he felt every time he thought about... _them_... made him incredibly uncomfortable. Steadying himself through the impulse, he wished the thought of what had happened didn't make him feel so desperately alone. He was a clone. He'd _always_ had brothers at his back, men he could trust and talk to. Out here on Dantooine it was just him and Ahsoka.

_That makes two of us the Jedi betrayed._

Folding his arms across his body for warmth, he started picking his way back across the fields towards the house. He wished he could talk to Ahsoka about this, but she was obviously in pain. She had been for some time. Her connection with her master and with General Kenobi had been strong, and while Rex didn't really understand what a Force bond felt like, he understood the way she cried in her sleep well enough. He hated that she was suffering, the way the Force was a knife in her wound, but it was the silence that scared him the most. It wasn't _like_ Ahsoka to be silent and distant. It wasn't like her to be distracted. Rex knew she needed him, but he also knew he was struggling to think of ways to help her. He wanted to tell her how the Jedi betrayed them both, how she should _hate_ them for what they did... but that didn't sit right with him either. Not too long ago, Ahsoka was a... like _them_. But he knew her. She loved him, and she loved his brothers. Could the people closest to her have been so different?

Reaching the house brought him back into the present, but as he stepped through the gate, he realized that the lights in the interior were dim. Ahsoka wasn't home yet. Rex sighed. It wasn't exactly surprising -- she'd been spending a lot of time out on her own lately, and he knew the space was important to her. While he didn't object to the privacy, it was starting to get pretty dark even with the glow of the moons, and he hadn't managed to get that kinrath nest cleaned out yet. Normally a few pests wouldn't phase Ahsoka, but the way she'd been lately, he decided to find her and bring her in anyway. Slipping through the door, Rex picked up one of his blasters, tucked it into the back of his pants, and headed out towards the place he knew he'd find her.

 

* * *

 

 It wasn't a long walk from the house to the ruins, and Rex kept a brisk pace as he made his way through the grass. Ahsoka had been spending a lot of time there in between their routines around the farm, which concerned Rex. Ahsoka was more than capable of looking after herself, but the terrain in that area was probably pretty unstable, and he didn't particularly like the idea of digging her out of there if something crumbled under her. Making his way to the peak of a small hill, the jagged wreckage came into view, an eerie silver that looked like carbon-scored durasteel. Despite himself, he felt his muscles tensing as he remembered a conversation he'd overheard on a supply run in Khoonda -- a couple of settlers were saying the place used to be a Jedi Enclave. That was thousands of years ago, but the idea still unsettled him. Slowly drawing the blaster, he started his descent down towards the ruins, keeping his eyes ahead for signs of Ahsoka. It was getting darker now, and he wished he'd had the foresight to bring a glowrod as the rocky ruins loomed over him.

"Ahsoka?"

His voice echoed and died, and met no response. Frowning, he swung one leg over a long, smooth stone that looked like it might have been something a few thousand years ago, and climbed into the wreckage, listening to the sounds of the night carefully. The rock structures around him exaggerated the sounds of his footsteps, making it hard for him to pick out ambient noises as he moved across the rocks. Pulling himself up onto a small plateau, he looked out over the expanse and caught sight of a familiar silhouette in a round clearing just downhill from him. She was crouching low to the ground, facing away from him, but he could tell she was tense from the way her shoulders squared up. Frowning, he picked his way down the path that led to her clearing, shifting his grip on the blaster in his hand. Something wasn't right, she looked like she was fighting something...

"Ahsoka!"

She didn't respond. Rex lengthened his stride and reached the edge of the clearing. She was alone, standing in the middle of the circle, her hands stretched out in front of her like he'd seen her do so many times in battle. She looked like she was bracing against something, but the only thing Rex could see in front of her was a pile of loose rocks. Inching closer, he could see that she was trembling, her entire being focused and tense. But nothing was happening. And suddenly, stretched too far, she collapsed. Rex watched in shock as her body went limp, and she fell to her knees, a shuddering sob welling up inside her and shattering her focused exterior. Without thinking, he lunged forward into the clearing and to her side.

"Ahsoka, are you all right? What happened?"

Her reaction to his presence was unexpected. At the sound of his voice, Ahsoka snapped her head towards him and lifted a hand to her face, eyes wide with panic.

"'Soka, it's me! It's Rex!" She lowered her hand and stared up at him a moment, relief relaxing the tension he'd seen her building up. He knelt beside her cautiously. "What's wrong?"

She looked up at him, her eyes meeting his, and for a moment, he could feel the barrier of Commander Tano sealing Ahsoka away. Just for a moment. As soon as the barrier had gone up, it cracked. Her eyes sparkled, and tears streamed down her cheeks, staining them deep brown.

"Rexy... I... I didn't know you were here..."

"It's okay, Ahsoka, I just --"

"No, Rex... I didn't _feel_ you were here...I didn't..."

The end of her sentence was lost, a strangled sob replacing it. Rex pulled her into his arms, wrapping himself protectively around her, and as he did so, his eyes fell onto the pile of rocks in front of her, realization hitting him in the chest with the force of a blaster bolt. Ahsoka was shaking silently, her face pressed against his neck and chest. The stance she'd been in, the way she'd been bracing up against the air, the tension and concentration...

"Rex, I tried... I don't know... what's happening to me... it's _gone_. It's so quiet, Rex... everything is so _quiet_... I couldn't do it..."

Rex held her tighter and pressed his lips to her montrals, lowering his voice to a resonant mutter that he hoped would calm her.

"Ahsoka, listen to me. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, okay? I'll... _we'll_ think of something..."

She shuddered and coiled up into a tight ball, and Rex knew he was just as lost as she was. He was a clone, what the hell did he know about things like this? This wasn't in his training, and it wasn't something he'd had experience with before. He knew enough to know that his fury was irrational, but that wasn't helping things. He couldn't be angry with the Jedi for this, no matter how much he wanted to blame them. He didn't even know this kind of thing _could_ happen! He stroked her lekku gently, feeling her trembling soften almost imperceptibly. She'd been immersed in this Jedi stuff her entire conscious life, he realized. Whatever his misgivings about the Jedi might be, they were all she had. Just like his brothers were to him. She had been a Jedi in more than just social affiliation -- it was a part of her being. As the anger died away, he suddenly remembered Fives. He'd lost more brothers than he could count in the war, but Fives' last words suddenly echoed through his head.

_"Rex....This...it's...bigger than any of us...than anything...I could've imagined...."_

Ahsoka shifted in his arms, and Rex scooped her up carefully, turning back and away from the ruins. He wanted to hate the Jedi for this, but this time, it wasn't their fault. He remembered Ahsoka fighting with General Skywalker and General Kenobi, the way they'd stuck their necks out for him and his brothers time and time again, and rage and certainty dissipated. _Bigger than any of us._ Rex sighed. He still didn't entirely understand, but he was beginning to think maybe Fives had. Wishing he could talk to Fives again, he knew Ahsoka must be feeling the same way about her old master. Guilt trickled down into his core. He'd been so focused on his own sense of betrayal that he hadn't stopped to consider that the situation was far more complicated than what he chose to acknowledge. Weaving his way out of the rubble and back onto the trail homeward, he resigned to leave those questions unanswered for the moment. The only thing that mattered to Rex right now was Ahsoka. He'd lost his brothers, but at least he still knew who _he_ was. Ahsoka had lost more than just her friends. She'd lost a seed nurtured from birth that gave her life. Truthfully, Rex realized with a sickening tightness settling across his chest, he had no idea what to expect from a Jedi who'd lost the Force.


	3. Chapter 3

Sitting cross-legged on the couch overlooking the fields, the passing of time seemed strangely warped to Ahsoka as she watched the droids in the field outside. She had no memory of how long she'd been sitting there, and it wasn't a knowledge she was particularly interested in obtaining. Thinking about the time she'd lost to this emptiness made her chest ache, a feeling she imagined was approximately how it would have felt if a battle droid had punched a hole through her heart.

_At least that would have had a predictable outcome._

She let her shoulders sag and dropped her head into her hands, feeling a profound sense of failure and shame as she considered what she'd become. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Rex out in the fields, crouching next to a droid he was repairing. Guilt joined the sensations that built up within her.

_I should be out there helping him, not sitting in here feeling sorry for myself!_ _There is no emotion, there is peace! There is PEACE!_

She could feel herself gritting her teeth in frustration and took a deep breath, trying to ground herself with one of the meditation techniques she'd learned as a padawan. She closed her eyes, reaching out for something, _anything._ But nothing came. Ahsoka felt as though she'd been encased in ferrocrete. She'd been able to feel life around her since she was a youngling -- it had sustained her and given her a sense of awareness, and even deep in space, feeling the presence of the soldiers and her masters around her had been comforting. Now it felt as though the galaxy had shrunk to a size barely large enough for her, and the cold, muffling silence pressed in from every angle. Isolation had left her alone with her memories, and as it turned out, most of those were far from comforting. She winced, realizing her body was tense and trembling despite her efforts to relax. This is not who she'd trained to be her entire life. Where was her serenity? Where was her focus?

A quiet hiss from across the house indicated one of the exterior doors had opened, prompting a burst of adrenaline that pushed Ahsoka to the edge of her seat momentarily. She felt stupid as soon as she saw Rex pulling his boots off just inside the door, but the reaction had been involuntary. He disappeared into the kitchen and emerged a few minutes later, a mug of something steaming in one hand, and a bowl in the other. His face was as good as a mirror -- even without the Force, Ahsoka could see how she must have looked through nervous concern written into every line of his face as he hesitated in the doorway.  She also realised with mild surprise that the light of the day was already beginning to fade.

"Hey Rex..." She tried to force some energy into her voice, but all she managed was a mutter. "Is it... is it night again already?"

The creases on Rex's forehead deepened, and he circled the little table in front of the couch and sat down next to her, putting the mug and the bowl down in front of her.

"Hey, 'Soka. Yeah, it is. Brought you some dinner. How... how're you feeling, sir?"

She smiled despite the pain it caused her, and Rex flushed, realizing his error.

"At ease, soldier. I'm just... just Ahsoka now."

"You've never been _just_ Ahsoka," he stated simply, picking up the bowl and putting it in her hands. "Not now, and not ever. Now eat your dinner, I'm guessing it'll be all you've had to eat today."

Ahsoka eyed the contents of the bowl for a moment, a pale green substance that she knew well from her meals in the soldier's mess. It was a nutrient-enriched soup that was standard fare for clones, developed by the Kaminoan biologists as a perfect solution for a clone's dietary needs. Ahsoka had never particularly _looked forward_ to eating the stuff -- she just liked going to the soldier's mess to relax and talk to the clones.

"Where in space did you find this stuff on Dantooine? I thought it only existed in Republic canteens."

Rex shrugged, looking apologetic.

"I found a supplier in Khoonda, I guess it's popular with farmers for the nutritional boost. But if you don't like it, I can --"

Ahsoka summoned the strength to smile in what she hoped looked reassuring.

"It's okay, Rex. I was just surprised. I probably need it right now, anyway."

For Rex's sake if nothing else, Ahsoka drank the soup slowly. It had a fraction of the taste it usually had, but Rex was watching her carefully, so she finished it and set it down, trying to focus on the pleasant warming sensation instead of the way eating made her feel. She'd been avoiding it partially because she'd been submersed in cold silence, but also partially because of the tightness in the pit of her stomach. Thankfully, the soup had been engineered to take pre-battle nerves into consideration. _Convenient._ As soon as she'd finished and set the bowl back down, Ahsoka noticed the still steaming mug sitting on the table in front of her. She picked it up to take a sip, but immediately realized the brown liquid inside wasn't the caf she was expecting. Curious, she sniffed at it, and found the aroma sweet and inviting instead of the robust bitterness of caf.

"What's this?"

He smiled, looking pleased with himself.

"Something a little more... exotic. One of the traders had a little bit last time I was in Khoonda, and I thought maybe you needed it. Try it and tell me what you think."

Lifting the mug to her lips, the fragrant sweetness filled her senses as she took a sip. The texture was thick and silky, and the flavour intoxicating and earthy and rich. She finished the mug quickly as Rex laughed, pulling the empty vessel from her fingers.

"Hey, easy 'Soka, that stuff's worth its weight in credits! You're supposed to _enjoy_ it, not down it."

The tension eased out of her muscles, and while she knew it was only temporary, she was willing to take what she could get.

"That was... wonderful. What's it called?"

"It's called hot chocolate," Rex smiled, setting the mug down and brushing her cheek with his fingers. "I thought it might be a little more relaxing than caf. The stuff has its uses, but not when it's already hard to sleep."

"Thanks, Rex," Ahsoka murmured, lifting her own hand to press his closer to her cheek. Physical sensations seemed so dull, she thought hazily. The feeling of Rex's rough hand on her cheek was an anchor keeping her from slipping back into the ferrocrete, and she grasped at it desperately. "I'm sorry I haven't been much help around here lately. I don't really know what's come over me."

She heard Rex exhale in a short huff, as though he'd been holding his breath.

"Don't worry about things around here, okay? There's not much to do lately, the droids are handling most of it. I'm just worried about you, Comman-- Ahsoka. I know you're not sleeping well, and you've barely been eating..."

She could tell what was really on his mind, but he didn't bring it up, and she was grateful to him for that. She'd seen his face the night he'd found her in the ruins. She'd been terrified, flooded with pain and grief and the sensation of experiencing _so much death_... and then everything had suddenly died out. He'd been the first thing she'd sensed out of the darkness, and his presence had terrified her. She remembered the way she'd thrown up her hands to defend herself as he moved out of the shadows of the ruins, unable to detect him, to _feel_ him like she used to do so effortlessly. In that moment he had been a ghost, and she'd been disoriented and alone. When she could finally make out his face in the moonlight, she could see the way his eyes had widened, and the confusion etched into deep lines across his forehead. She couldn't bear to think that he _pitied_ her. The thought of being pathetic was repulsive and brought a hot flush of shame to her lekku, which should could feel deepen in colour. Rex slipped his hand free and used it to pull her towards him, wrapping her in a silent, tight hug. She could feel his lips graze her montrals, and the vibrations of his deep voice resonated through them and into the hazy corners of her mind.

"Stay with me, 'Soka..."

"I'm _trying_ " she gasped, the words feeling heavy on her tongue. Whatever it looked like, she really _was_ trying. That was the part that hurt the most. She never used to have to exert so much energy just to wake up in the morning, let alone leave the house. Next to Rex's silent strength, she suddenly felt like such a _child_. The thought sat strangely with her. She'd never known any other way but the life of a Jedi, but her species lived to almost a hundred Galactic Standard Years. She had only seen seventeen, and she'd aged more in the last three than most adults of _any_ species did in a lifetime. It had never really bothered her before... why couldn't she let it go now? She glanced up at Rex, feeling quiet respect for his soldier's calm. Nothing ever fazed Rex -- not blaster fire, and not the silence that followed. _There is no emotion, there is peace._ The teachings of her former masters dug their nails into her skin and clung there. She wondered dully how many of them were still alive to repeat that dogma. She wondered about Anakin, whose pain had seared though her more powerfully than any agony she had known before, and left in its wake an open, bleeding wound in the Force. She shuddered involuntarily, and felt Rex's arms tighten around her in response.

"Hey... just... remember that I'm here, okay? If there's any way I can help..."

"Thanks, Rex. I... I know."

She nestled her head back against his shoulder, detaching herself from the thoughts and pain and unanswered questions. Rex was there, and that knowledge flooded her with relief. He'd been at her side through some of her darkest moments and hardest battles, the telltale sound of his twin DC-17s blazing away reminding her that he was right behind her.

"Rex...?"

"Mm?"

"Are you sorry you left?"

She regretted the words as soon as they'd left her mouth. She felt his chest compress as he exhaled slowly, and glancing up at him, she could see his brow furrow. _Too soon_ , Ahsoka thought to herself, feeling her lekku flush with embarrassment again. _Insensitive, stupid!_

"I'm sorry, you don't have to--"

"No, it's okay. I'm... I'm not sorry I left. I left for the same reason you did. Just... miss my brothers," he added gruffly, staring into the distance.

"But your brothers didn't think you were the enemy," she pushed, her eyes on his.

Rex's eyes hardened and his mouth set, creating an expression which was tense but overall entirely unreadable.

"Not me, no... got kinda hard figuring out who _was_... but it's a long story. I'll tell you some other time. I think we should try to get some sleep, I have to run maintenance on the crop dusters in the morning."

Ahsoka knew enough about Rex to know he was done with the subject for now, so she let it drop. His demeanour had been strange, but she was exhausted from even a short conversation, and her mind was rebelling against her ability to guide her own thoughts. She didn't have the energy to protest as Rex scooped her up and headed down the corridor. At least with him next to her, the nightmares faded faster. More than anything, all she hoped for was a dark, dreamless sleep.

* * *

The sun was bright and warm that day, but all Ahsoka managed to feel from being beneath it was the ever present fatigue she'd been battling. She was crouching just outside the ag unit, cleaning dust out of a battered R4 droid they'd salvaged from a junk heap near Khoonda's spaceport. Spacers didn't have room for dead weight, especially when any extra space they had could be requisitioned for cargo, and whoever had been transporting this one had obviously decided it was beyond repair. She's felt strangely emotional seeing it scrapped like that, remembering her former master's heroic little astromech, and Rex must have noticed the way her eyes had lingered on it, because he'd spent the better part of the next hour or so helping her dig it out and locating the obviously missing parts they'd need to get it operational again. She smiled faintly, chewing on her lower lip as she worked at a tough patch of grit jamming one of the droid's repair arms. It was nice to be doing something with her hands again, even if it was just another way of keeping her mind occupied. The droid swivelled its dome towards her with a metallic grating noise, issuing a low whistle in what sounded a lot like trepidation.

"Sorry, R4," Ahsoka mumbled, peering into the gap between its dome and main chassis. "I guess I didn't get all of that carbon out of there after all. Just hang on, okay? I'll have a look at it when I finish --"

A mechanical whirring of a straining motor cycled to life, and the repair arm budged about an inch before locking up again. R4 made a disgruntled beep, and Ahsoka sighed, rocking out of her crouch and into a slump against the bulky droid. She'd been poring over the manual for what felt like an eternity now, but somehow, it was never as easy in practice. Nothing ever was.

"I'm gonna go get some more oil, okay R4? Don't go anywhere."

The droid responded with an exasperated whine, and she dragged herself to her feet, giving it a comforting pat on the dome as she walked past it and towards the shed. R4's joints were pretty locked up, and she figured it hadn't seen any maintenance in ages. Truthfully, she had no idea if _she_ was even doing it right. She'd never been much of a mechanic, but she had been a fast learner once, and it would be handy having another droid around. She could feel the heat of the day wearing her down, but she focused her attention on the task at hand, refusing to allow herself to consider her own exhaustion. _Just fix the droid. There's plenty of time to sleep later._

Ahsoka pressed the release for the door to the ag unit, feeling the slight gust of the pneumatic mechanism as the door opened. The workbench was cluttered with tools and schematics that Rex had been using for his own repairs, and she did her best to leave them untouched as she rummaged for the oil canister. She wondered how this kind of work compared to what he was used to -- subsistence farming was a far cry from the Grand Army of the Republic and the control and power he'd been entrusted with there. She wondered sometimes _why_ he'd left all of that. Her master had always trusted and respected him, and he'd been given much more lenient treatment than many of his brothers serving under different generals. She'd never really managed to find out what his reasons were, but she could tell that whatever they were, they weren't something he was up for discussing. Shifting a pile of hand scrawled notes that looked like old supplies lists, Ahsoka managed to find the oil canister she was looking for, and was just about to put everything back when she caught sight of a maintenance checklist. The list seemed endless, all penned in Rex's neat hand, and she felt a flush of guilt as she realised just how much he'd been doing without even asking for her help. She'd been so focused on keeping her own mind busy that she'd lost track of just how much work needed to be done around here. Checking the list, she decided to shelve her droid tinkering for a bit and go see if Rex needed any help. She couldn't help but smile a little as she noticed the precision of Rex's daily schedule, with estimated timings provided in militaristic precision. _Oh Rexy. Some things don't change._ She noticed he'd pencilled in work on their communications antenna as his current task, which had been malfunctioning for a few weeks now. He'd been grumbling about something chewing on the leads that were exposed to the exterior because it was going to involve extra work to scale the thing to check for tears in the insulation. Pleased with herself for remembering _something_ that wasn't her own inner conflict, she decided to go see if Rex needed a hand. She wanted him to know she appreciated what he was doing, and although he never asked for that kind of validation, she figured a little gesture was the least she could do.

Setting down the oil canister and grabbing the two cleanest mugs she could find, she filled them with caf and headed out towards the antenna, which was set up on a little hill just on the other end of the fields. She could just make out a ladder propped against the narrow metal frame of the antenna, and Rex's silhouette against the bright sunlight. She felt the exertion of the short walk far more than she cared to admit, but she ignored the sensation, trying to convince herself of a strength she didn't feel. Reaching the base of the antenna, she shielded her eyes against the sun and gave a little wave. Rex had a hydrospanner clenched between his teeth, but he freed a hand to wave back.

"I brought you some caf. Thought maybe you could... use a hand around here?"

Rex grabbed the hydrospanner and braced himself on the frame again. He was clearly surprised she'd come out, but she couldn't blame him for that. She'd spent an awful lot of time these days either trying to still her mind through meditation, or working on R4 alone. She regretted her absence all the more watching him work -- it wasn't right leaving so much to him.

"Let me just finish this up and I'll be right down."

Ahsoka nodded and perched on a boulder, setting Rex's mug down and taking a sip of her own. It was a little too warm out for caf, but she liked the mild stimulant quality it had on her. Her thoughts were normally so hazy and muddled, it helped to have a little help sharpening her perception. She watched the droids in their little field harvesting without emotion, enjoying the repetitive motions they produced, but was snapped out of her ruminations by a clang of metal on metal and the sound of a choice stream of profanities. Ahsoka turned around and saw the source of the problem -- the hydrospanner Rex had been grappling with had fallen from his grasp. She stood up, eager to be of some use.

"I've got it, stay up there!"

She fished the tool out from beneath the antenna where it had fallen and tucked it into her belt, climbing the scaffolding carefully to where Rex was waiting. A cool breeze tousled the hem of her nondescript tan farmer's tunic as she reached his location. The view was nice from up here. Dantooine looked peaceful. Looking up, she grinned at Rex, surprised to find that his expression was tense.

"Hey, I got it, don't worry!" She reached down and slipped the hydrospanner into her hand, extending it towards him. "Here you go!"

Rex took a deep breath.

"Uh, thanks, 'Soka."

He reached down towards her to grab the tool from her, but Ahsoka could see the way the knuckles of the hand that held the scaffolding were turning white. His eyes were distant and stormy, and as she placed the hydrospanner in his hand, she saw that it was shaking.

"Rex? Are you okay?"

He hesitated a moment, gripping the hydrospanner tightly and not seeming to really comprehend the question. Finally, he shook his head.

"Yeah, uh, I'm... I'm fine. Just been out in the sun too long."

Ahsoka felt concern flood through her. Rex _never_ struggled with a lack of self control.

"Okay... well, you should probably take a break. Come down and have some caf, I can take it from here."

Worryingly, Rex offered no protest, and quietly made his way back down to the base of the antenna with Ahsoka. She handed him the caf and watched him carefully as he took it, noticing the way a tiny bit of the liquid spilled over as he drank. He was shaking. Ahsoka felt her chest tighten, but brushed off the sensation. He'd been out in the sun working for quite a while -- maybe it was just the exertion getting to him. Pushing her anxieties down into the dark recesses of her mind where they were normally shelved, she resolved to be more active in helping out. The fatigue she felt from engagement tore at the corners of her consciousness, but she resisted it. Pain and anxieties or not, she could not stand by and let Rex wear himself down alone. Gently, she pulled the hydrospanner from Rex's now slack grip and guided him into a sitting position against the boulder she'd been perched on. The distracted glaze didn't leave his eyes, but he cradled the mug between his hands to steady it. Ahsoka frowned, watching him out of the corner of her eye as she scaled the antenna's scaffolding and got to work. She didn't like it, but for the time, there was nothing she could do. Fighting a crushing feeling in her ribcage, she wrapped her legs through the scaffolding and tried to focus on the repair job in front of her. She could feel the numb sensation tingling in her fingers, making her hands clumsy and slow as she worked. She was starting to feel like a Ruping with damaged wings. The Force had been so integral to the way she'd lived her life, and without it, she felt lost and blind and completely incapable. It took her longer than she cared to admit, but ultimately, she finished the job and climbed back down to where Rex was waiting. He'd finished his caf, and his eyes were no longer distant and troubled, but full of their usual serious concern.

"Thanks for the help, 'Soka. Guess I really did need the break."

It wasn't meant as an accusation, but it stung like one anyway. He was severely overworked, and she wasn't helping things.

"Rexy, I... I can't let you do all this stuff alone. I want to split up the work, make things a little more even around here."

"Ahsoka, I appreciate that, but I have things under control. I just think you should --"

"This isn't up for debate, _captain_ ," she interrupted, exaggerating his former rank in a teasing voice. She'd meant the comment to loosen him up, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Rex's jaw clenched, and Ahsoka frowned, unsure of why her usual teasing elicited that response.

"Come on, Rex, I was just kidding! But really, I want to help. I need to pull my own weight around here." His eyes softened again, the moment passing.

"What about that R4 unit you were working on?"

"R4's almost operational," she smiled, a phantom of her old confidence teasing the words from her body. It departed almost as quickly as it had come, but she tried to ride the feeling as long as possible."When he's done, I'll have him help you out. He's a little rusty, but he's still functional. Mostly." She wished she could say the same for herself. "I think something caught and burned in his dome motor, though. There's a lot of carbon jammed in there."

"Hmm, alright then," Rex conceded. "We can use all the help we can get, I guess. Let's go take a look at it, and then we can... talk about what needs to be done around here, if you're sure you're up for it?"

He threw her a look of thinly veiled concern, and she flinched involuntarily. She was sure of nothing, other than that she knew she had to try. She'd been struggling with even the most basic tasks, but staying busy was a distraction that she knew she desperately needed. She couldn't face the silence, and she couldn't bear to be dead weight. There was no choice.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Let's go."


	4. Chapter 4

The days had been slow and monotonous, and they all seemed to blend together in Rex's mind. Truth be told, he liked it that way. Routine was comforting, and it was a luxury he was still getting used to. He rose early, and went to bed exhausted, but not in the same way he used to be exhausted, where every day was a catalogue of faces he'd never see again, burned into his memory as he slept. The farm life was quiet -- or it should have been. These days, it was getting harder and harder for Rex to push back on the intrusive nightmares and thoughts that coursed through his head. His nightmares were getting worse, and thinking of them churned up waves of nausea and dread. Every night, he watched helpless as the Jedi turned on him and his brothers. He hadn't been there when it had finally unravelled, but he knew this is what his brothers must have felt, this despair and rage and betrayal. Every night, he woke up drenched in cold sweat and shaking. They were getting worse, more graphic, more painful, and Rex found that no matter how exhausted he was, they were there. They were always there.

Rex was tinkering with the derelict looking speeder parked in the hangar attached to the house. He guessed it was around oh-four hundred hours from the softness of the light he could make out from the hangar's little windows, but it didn't particularly matter to him. He'd more or less given up sleeping -- he only really made a show of it to keep Ahsoka from worrying. She had enough on her plate right now, he reflected, tightening the bolts on the panel he'd loosened to inspect. She'd wanted to help him with his work, and the thought made him smile fondly. Of course she'd wanted to help. She was one of the strongest people he'd ever met. She always had been. He remembered the way she'd borne the authority of command, of the _lives_ of his brothers, with exceptional grace and compassion. She'd been fourteen when the Jedi had thrown her into their schemes, isolating her from other kids her age and asking her to replace them with death and blaster fire. She'd done it, too, and Rex realised how fiercely proud of her he'd always been. When Ahsoka commanded, his brothers followed.

It hadn't been easy for her, though. He could still see the look on her face when she'd gotten out of her fighter after her first command in the space over Ryloth. She'd survived that scrap, and he'd been grateful for that much, but his brothers under her command hadn't been so lucky. He'd wanted to go to her, to hold her, to thank every little superstitious thing his brothers had done to ensure victory for at least bringing _her_ back. But she hadn't come back from that mission. Not really. He'd hung back as General Skywalker confronted her, watching the way her eyes stayed fixed on the ground. She had the hunted look of a trapped animal -- she knew she'd gambled and lost, and the reality of the loss was staggering. He'd watched as a brother offhandedly voiced his concern that the General wasn't going to be present to guide them -- meaning no offense of course -- and the humility and shame and understanding she'd expressed at his words. He'd wanted to protect her then, too. To tell her he still believed in her. He knew from her response that the girl who had left for battle had never returned, and he felt himself bristle now in her defence. They'd _both_ been pawns to the Jedi, and they'd both paid with their lives.

Finishing with the panel he'd just taken apart, Rex flipped the hood covering the speeder's engine up and checked the oil levels aimlessly, knowing full well that he was really only killing time. He'd run through a pre-departure check of this speeder every time he'd gone on a supply run, the military precision of the gesture feeling strangely comforting to him in a life that suddenly seemed so... _unstructured_. Everything was, as it always was, in order. He sighed, gently lowering the hood to avoid slamming it and waking Ahsoka, who would feel the vibrations of the impact in her montrals even deep in sleep. He wished he could join her -- the weight of the sleep he hadn't been getting was crushing, and making it impossible to perform basic tasks efficiently. Even caf wasn't enough to fight off the fatigue, and sometimes the nightmares forced themselves into his half-sleeping, half-waking state. He couldn't fight it off forever, he reflected, willing his eyes to focus, but he _could_ keep moving, and that would fend it off at least a little while longer. Leaving the speeder alone, Rex made his way over to the wall where he'd hung his weapons. While most of his standard issue weapons and armour were safely packed out of sight, his twin DC-17s were hanging carefully on pegs near the workbench, unassuming amongst an assortment of farming equipment. They hadn't been used much since he'd put them there -- occasionally he'd take them down to dispatch some local fauna that decided to meddle with his equipment, but other than that, they were inert. Although their home was relatively remote, and none of the locals were likely to have had a particularly close look at Republic-issue weapons anyway, the thought of using the blasters somewhere where they might be identified made Rex uncomfortable, and for the most part, they'd remained unused. Still, they were in good working order, and it seemed a shame to let them gather dust while he resigned himself to using outdated farm equipment to deal with pests. Rex took them down and twirled them experimentally, getting used to their weight in his hands again. The gesture was both strange and familiar at the same time, but it came to him naturally. _It's almost like I was born to do this,_ he smiled bitterly, the irony of the statement far from lost on him. The thought settled uncomfortably into the pit of his stomach, and quickly checking that the safeties were still engaged, he slipped the blasters into his belt at his hips as he opened the hangar door, suddenly desperate for a breath of fresh air.

The early morning air was calm and still. It was still dark out. _Perfect_. Rex squinted through the gloom until he could just make out the path away from the farm and into the plains, and with what felt like an extreme amount of effort for so simple a task, willed himself to walk. Dawn was when most of Dantooine's wildlife seemed to be most active, and finally getting around to clearing out that kinrath nest seemed like the kind of job that might force his eyes to stay open a little longer. His fingers found the grips of the blasters he carried and seemed to draw strength from their presence, curling around the well worn surface as they'd so often done before. Picking off some of the oversized bugs would be welcome target practice after such a long time. They'd be out foraging at this time of day, and if he could take out some of the ones responsible for laying eggs, at least maybe he could keep the damn things away from his equipment. He let himself focus on the crunch of the dirt path under his feet as he moved out into the plains, keeping his eyes fixed on the shifting grey mass of grasslands ahead of him. A light breeze had picked up as he walked, tousling the rolling grass sea that spanned out in front of him, and Rex felt a pang of frustration. He could see the tiny hollow in the distance where he knew the nest should be, at the base of a hill topped with a single stunted tree, but its opening was obscured by the tall grass. _Typical_. Stifling a yawn, Rex loosened his DC-17s from their place in his belt, switched off their safeties, and headed towards the hollow slowly, scanning the movements in the grass around him.

The wind was slight enough to move the tips of the long stalks, but time spent out in the plains had taught Rex to identify the way the grass moved when it was disrupted at its base. As he neared the hollow, he could hear the high-pitched screeching noises that the creatures made to one another, and carefully, he moved towards the sounds, biding his time. Kinrath were hive creatures, and as soon as he attacked one of them, the rest of them would start to swarm to try and keep him away from the matriarch. All he needed to do was take her out. Raising his blasters to eye level, he inched closer to the opening of the nest, which he could now see was shifting as the enormous creatures scuttled in and out. It was the moment before the plunge, and Rex felt himself smiling as a shiver of adrenaline coursed through him. Finally something simple, an act he could understand. In one perfectly practiced sweep, Rex rose from his crouch, aimed, and fired.

The shot found its mark, cleanly felling a large kinrath at the entrance of the nest. The sound and the blast immediately triggered a reaction from inside the hive, and the spider-like creatures rushed out of the darkness, hissing in fury. Rex was calm despite the flurry, a sort of  relief flowing through him as he fell back on buried instincts. His blasters roared to life, the sound bringing a rush of memories into his mind as his body fell into the familiar rhythm he'd cultivated over years of combat's toll. Time seemed to slow, movement blurred, and Rex felt his movements merge into a unified stream of action. Killing the kinrath was a reflex, and Rex let his body take over, responding to its surroundings reflexively. He suddenly remembered one of the training simulations he'd run back on Kamino, before he'd ever been deployed, and the way he and his squadmates had been when things had been simpler. There was no confusion or betrayal in the simulator -- just clones and clankers. And more confidence than he'd ever felt again.

A particularly large kinrath reared onto its hind legs behind him, and Rex had just enough time to pivot and lunge out of the way of its flailing pincers, silencing its shrieking with two careful shots. The swarm was intensifying, and for each kinrath Rex took down, it seemed another was always ready to replace it. The matriarch would be somewhere inside the hive, protected by her children. He'd reach her soon enough -- this was a fairly young hive, and he wasn't in any particular hurry.  The target practice was welcome and simple, and he felt a rush of adrenaline every time a shot found its mark. Nothing mattered but this. Nothing mattered but the creatures in front of him, the way they struck out with powerful cuts to his body, the way they missed and screamed and died. He'd been out of the fight for a long time, but he realized as his heart pumped faster that he'd never truly left the war. Maybe the Kaminoan cloners had been right about him and his brothers. They'd designed them, raised them, trained them for the single purpose of fighting and dying -- maybe it _was_ all they were good for. In the simple act of clearing out a kinrath hive, Rex realized that he felt _alive_. The realization was an icy shiver that trickled down his spine and into his core. _No life after war._ He dove, feeling a kinrath clip his arm and tear the fabric of his tunic as he did so. His arm stung, but the wound was only a scratch, and the creature fell with a smoking hole through its exoskeleton. The thought nagged at him, and the adrenaline fuelled serenity of his movements shattered as a memory of Fives flashed into his mind, replacing calm with agony as his brother's final words tore through his chest.

_Finally... free._

The only release from the Jedi's war was death. Clones weren't designed to survive, they were designed to die. Rex felt as though he was being suffocated, his fighting becoming more desperate as he clung to it, feeling as though if he stopped the world might grind to a halt and unravel around him. How could he have ever believed that he could be a _farmer?_ No one escaped. No one ever escaped! He'd fought in their war with everything he had, he'd been a Republic slave, just like his brothers. And that's all he was ever designed to be. He'd watched them die, sometimes one at a time, and other times in numbers he couldn't fathom. He'd tried not to make a habit of getting too attached to the shinies, fresh faced and eager to please from the moment they set foot on the battlefield, but he knew each one of them as he watched them die, the looks in their eyes changing from terror to quiet relief. A freedom that the Jedi had never intended for them to receive any other way. He hated what they'd done to him, what they'd done to his brothers! They were treated like trained kath hounds, taught to obey orders without thought and die for a future they were never meant to have any part in. _And when they couldn't use us anymore, they put us down like animals and betrayed everything we'd helped them build!_ His arm stung where it had been slashed, and feeling suddenly trapped and half blind in his fury, Rex wheeled, feeling the presence behind him, raised his blasters, and fired. The moments which followed seemed to span for an eternity.

Rex knew he should have been staring at a kinrath, but in the moment he pulled his triggers, all he saw was a padawan. She was small in stature, no more than a child, her eyes wide with the remnants of terror as consciousness drained from them slowly. He watched her fall, helpless, his eyes fixated on the twin scorch marks his blasters had made in her tunic. His head was pounding, and he felt like the lump in his throat might suffocate him as he folded to his knees. The adrenaline dissipated and his vision swam as he fought back a wave of nausea. The padawan was a crumpled heap in the homogenous grey of the morning, but as he forced himself back to his feet, he knew it had been a trick of his exhausted mind. There was no padawan out here on the 'Rim, and as he approached the shape in the grass, he saw that it had been a kinrath, just like the others. He looked around, surveying the field of dead creatures, resisting the way his mind warped their bodies into recognisable forms in the darkness.

Another wave of nausea caught him, and he took a deep breath to steady himself. So this is what it came to, the grand purpose of his creation. He turned his back on the scattered creatures, not trusting himself even as far as to check that he'd taken out the matriarch. The Jedi had betrayed him and his brothers, but the thought of killing their younglings filled him with disgust. He hadn't been able to stop himself. Deeply shaken, he  moved out of the field and back towards the house. There was no chance of sleep now, despite his exhaustion, and Rex didn't think he could bear to be in the same room as Ahsoka after what he'd seen, and the revulsion he felt for himself. He hated them, didn't he? The eyes of the terrified padawan flashed through his mind and he felt his chest constrict. He wasn't sure he knew her name, but her definitely knew her face. She was one of the near-human species-- Tholothian?-- padawans he'd watched Ahsoka teach, a plucky kid that had picked up some of 'Soka's nerve as she'd grown. Padawans were Jedi, too, weren't they? The surge of anger that rushed through him even at the thought of the younglings brought cold sweat to the back of his neck. The intensity of his reaction to thinking of a youngling scared him. _What the hell is wrong with me? She was just a kid..._ Slipping back into the hangar, Rex tried to keep his hands steady as he placed his blasters back on the wall. It was just a hallucination, but it had been real enough to him, and there was nothing imagined about the way he'd felt when he'd pulled his triggers. Exhausted and shaken, Rex slumped into the chair at the workbench, sliding the now cold cup of caf he'd left half finished towards him. With desperate urgency, he swallowed the bitter dregs in the mug and crumpled over the workbench, every muscle in his body aching, but powerless to keep himself from shaking as he waited for the dawn.

* * *

 He had no sense of how long it had been since he'd returned to the garage, and the turmoil in his mind had kept him completely unaware of his surroundings until the hiss of the door that linked the garage to the house echoed distantly amidst his tortured thoughts. He followed the sound to its source, slowly moving out of the dark recesses of his mind until he could focus on his surroundings again. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of movement, and he lifted his head from his arms and turned to face the door in time to see Ahsoka slip through, still wrapped in the oversized linen tunic she slept in, hands tucked across her body and under her arms against the morning chill. The door hissed shut behind her and she caught sight of him, her bright blue eyes locking onto his.

"Rex? What are you doing in here? We don't need to leave for another few hours at least."

Rex pitched around for an answer, but nothing coherent emerged. He could see Ahsoka's eyes glimmer with confusion, and he took a deep breath, willing his thoughts to coalesce.

"Morning, 'Soka... I was just, uh... I thought I'd left a crate of supplies in the ag unit, just wanted to make sure we, uh... didn't forget it today."

He winced and glanced back at her to see if he'd been compelling, but Ahsoka's eyes weren't focused on his face anymore. Following the line of her gaze, he felt the lump in his throat return. She'd noticed the blood-stained tear in his tunic, the place the kinrath had gashed him. In a few quick strides she'd crossed the room and was forcing his tunic off of his shoulder. He offered no resistance, knowing it would do no good. Ahsoka was gentle but deliberate, her rust-toned fingers contrasting his deep tan as they traced the gash in his forearm. It wasn't a severe injury, but he hadn't cleaned it when he got in, and it had bled enough to seal torn fibers from his tunic into the wound. Ahsoka carefully lifted the fabric to free what she could of the tattered cloth from the cut. It stung, but Rex was determined not to let it show.

"...What happened to you?"

"Uh, one of the harvesting droids... clipped me when I was digging for the crate in the ag unit..."

Ahsoka said nothing, but he could tell she didn't believe him from the hurt in her eyes. Rex felt like something had knocked the wind out of him, and let his eyes drop as Ahsoka pulled the tattered sleeve free and slipped the tunic off of his arm and shoulder. She left for a moment and vanished into the house, and Rex let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He couldn't tell her what he'd seen, what he'd done. She would never trust him if she knew what was tearing through his mind... and maybe she _shouldn't_. He felt the guilt and fear tighten his chest as she returned with a bowl of water and a roll of fabric. He shouldn't let her near him, but in his current state, he didn't have the energy to resist her. Ahsoka set the bowl and cloth down on the workbench and picked up a small towel that had been floating in the water, alongside some fragrant leaves Rex couldn't identify. She mopped at the cut delicately, the white cloth turning pink as the dried blood loosened. The warm water seemed to burn him as it trickled down his arm, but it cleaned remarkably well, and he let Ahsoka work without comment. He trusted her with his life, which was more than he deserved. Gently, Ahsoka placed the towel back in the water and carefully applied a bacta patch to his arm to speed up the healing process before binding the cut with the clean fabric. He watched her work, wishing he could explain everything to her, but for the first time in his life, fear had silenced him. His lack of control out on the plains had shaken him, and in the time he'd returned to the hangar to the time Ahsoka had found him, he'd been replaying his brother Tup's final moments in his mind, watching in horror as Tup lost control and shot down their General at point-blank. He watched it happen over and over again, letting it obsess him, unable to shut it out. He'd done it on the plains... he'd done it, too...

The thought slipped away as Ahsoka finished wrapping his arm and pulled his torn tunic back over his shoulder.

"You should probably rest that for a while or it will re-open. Why don't you do your engine check, and I'll go change and then get the rest of the supply crates and load them up? Shouldn't take long."

It had been phrased as a question, but Rex realised it wasn't. Ahsoka slipped her arms around his neck and held him, her grasp lingering for a moment. He could smell the heady plants lingering on her skin, and for a moment, his mind fell silent. But only for a moment. She released him slowly and slipped away, vanishing back into the house as the door hissed shut behind her. Rex watched her go and fought the buzzing that was bubbling up in the back of his mind again as he got up to fill his mug again. The caf was putting him even further on edge he knew, but without it, he risked losing what little focus he had left. The more of it he drank, the less it seemed to help him, and yet it was all there was. He'd already done his engine check, so he focused on the drink instead, waiting. It wasn't long before Ahsoka re-emerged, now dressed in a simple, belted brown tunic and a pair of utilitarian leggings and boots. She smiled weakly at him as she passed, and hit the button that opened the hangar door. The large doors opened slowly and with a grating creak, and Ahsoka passed through them and into the orange dawn glow, heading towards the ag unit. Rex finished his caf and headed towards the speeder, opening the storage hatch at the back and running through his checklist one last time in an effort to stay focused. Most of the crates of grain had been loaded up already, and Ahsoka returned with the final few moments later. The job was done quickly and silently, and Rex slammed the hatch shut, perhaps more forcefully than he'd meant. Ahsoka glanced back up at him, a single white marking on her brow arching in concern.

"Rex, are you _sure_ you're okay? You seem... tired..."

Rex sighed, forcing the fear back again. _Keep it together, soldier! You're losing your damn head._

"Yeah, I'm... I'm fine. Let's just get going."

Ahsoka frowned.

"Okay. Go change your tunic first, though -- that one might get us some weird looks... I think I'd better drive today."

* * *

 

 Rex was barely aware of the Dantooine landscape as they made their way over the plains and towards Khoonda. Ahsoka drove a lot like her old master used to fly, but Rex was too tense to let it bother him today. While Ahsoka's speed usually put him on edge, today it was as though his body was finally moving at the same velocity as his heart. He let the wind wash over him, and he felt it play across his closely cropped hair. It was tangible, and that was reassuring -- his senses seemed so muffled, and it took all of his strength to feel the world around him. Ahsoka was quiet, and Rex was grateful for that -- he wasn't sure he'd be capable of conversation if he tried, and he was afraid of what he might say. A drive that normally seemed monotonous passed in a blur of fields and farmhouses and dawn-stained plains, and Khoonda's dated buildings soon began to loom on the horizon. Rex focused on them, trying to keep himself in the present as much as he possibly could. The structures looked like they'd been clean and respectable once, but time had worn them down, and the Outer Rim wasn't exactly a trading hub. Ahsoka eased up on the speeder slightly as they approached the city, and scattered buildings that made up the outskirts of the settlement grew in number. They were mostly dingy scrap shops and diners, and the early risers of Khoonda were already up and milling in the streets as they passed, on their way to the administrative centre of the settlement or the main market sector, where they were going. Rex watched them as they passed, wondering what their lives were like. There'd been a time when he'd have seen their lives as purposeless, wasted in pointless survival when a greater purpose called the galaxy to war. He felt a pang of fear as he watched the citizens of Khoonda gathering, talking, _living_ , and realized that he may have deserted the army, but he'd never left the war. He'd never lived like they did, and he felt his muscles tighten as the fear cut deeper. He wasn't _designed_ to live like these people did. He couldn't stop thinking like a soldier, and the thought filled him with apprehension. He could feel his heart pounding again, hands clenching until his knuckles started to turn white. Was this all there was for him?

"Rex?"

The sound of Ahsoka's voice jarred him, and he started in surprise, his eyes refocusing and his mind falling still. He turned his head and saw that they'd stopped: the speeder was parked alongside a large warehouse that sheltered Khoonda's market, which was just beginning to buzz with activity. Ahsoka put her hand on his arm gently, squeezing it reassuringly. Her eyes were fixed on him, and he couldn't tell if fear, concern, or helplessness was most dominant in the way she tracked his movements.

"Rex... you look exhausted... why don't you just help me unload and then go and wait for me in the cantina? This really won't take long, and you look like you need a rest."

Rex opened his mouth to protest, but Ahsoka shot him a disapproving glance.

"Don't, Rex. Please? You're really worrying me. Just take a break, okay? I promise I can handle this."

Before he could respond, Ahsoka was out of the speeder and unloading the supply crates from the storage hatch. Rex followed her, knowing he didn't have the strength to argue. He _could_ use a distraction, and he didn't trust himself to be of much use to her anyway. The thought of his emotions getting in the way of helping with basic tasks frustrated him, but he knew Ahsoka could be stubborn, and decided arguing would just exhaust him further. Ahsoka gave him a tiny smile and squeezed his hand one last time before heading into the market, and Rex watched her make her way inside, her shoulders braced against the weight of the crate she was carrying. He knew she was struggling against the current of something he couldn't really understand. Ever since he'd found her in the ruins, she'd seemed lost and uncertain in her actions, like she'd stopped being able to see. The look on her face when she'd told him she wanted to be useful and to help around the farm had been full of desperation and urgency, like she'd needed to know she still could. He'd respected that, and he'd felt her pain resonate within him -- after all, what good was a soldier outside of war? She was hurting, too... and yet, she was pushing forward. He wished he had her strength and resilience, the traits that he'd seen inspire his men to follow her into battle. Nothing ever seemed to keep her down for long. He turned away and headed down the street towards the cantina, privately wishing he could say the same for himself.

* * *

 

The hiss of the cantina's door brought with it the gust of the familiar smell of stale beer and grime, and Rex thought of the bars he'd spent time in on Coruscant in the company of his brothers as he stepped into the dimly lit room. He lingered at the door for a moment as he waited for his eyes to adjust from the glare of the bright morning outside, and as his eyes focused in the darkness, he noted without much surprise that there were only a handful of locals lingering by the bar, watching a holo broadcast of a local podrace.  Rex moved quietly into the bar and took a seat at a booth by the bar. Yes, it certainly was a far cry from Coruscant. The bars he'd been to there were mostly visited by clones, and while they weren't exactly high class establishments, they were maintained at the same standard of military efficiency that clones were used to in basically every other aspect of their lives. He'd been to this place a few times before, and he knew from experience that it was nothing like the bars he was used to.

A small, incredibly damaged service droid caught sight of Rex and clattered towards him, stopping at his table with a mechanical wheeze.

"Good m-m-morning. What c-c-c-can I get you?"

It was early for a drink, but Rex was too tense to care, and in his current state, he didn't think he was fit to drive anyway. He could use something to help him relax a little.

"Corellian ale. Whatever you have on tap is fine."

Before the droid could strain its obviously damaged vocabulator again, Rex extended a handful of credits towards it, which vanished into a small compartment that looked like a badly installed after-market add on. It looked like it had seen its fair share of action in this place, and he was surprised the thing was still functional considering the number of dents and gashes it was sporting in its outer casing. Satisfied with its payment, the droid spared him further conversation and clattered away again, leaving Rex alone at his table. The noise from the bar was growing, and he assumed from the angry shouting that the locals were about to lose their bets. His mind was still buzzing when his drink came, deposited in front of him haphazardly by the droid. He took a sip, unsurprised to find it warm and not particularly good. Nonetheless, he drank it, cradling the dirty glass in both hands to keep them from shaking. He couldn't get the events of the last night out of his head, and he wished he could forget the youngling he'd seen, and the way he'd torn her down. He wished he could bury all of that -- hell, he'd tried! But the impulse was unsettlingly strong, and he felt as though he was trapped in his own body, watching someone else take control. He knew he couldn't entirely distance himself from what had happened, though. That was the part that scared him most. He took a deep breath and a long drink, but the panic that was building in him refused to be silenced. There had been a part of him that had felt that his actions were right.

"Hey!"

Rex tensed, noticing that the angry shouting that had been his ambient backdrop had silenced. He turned his head slightly in the direction of the men at the bar and found that their podrace was over, and they were all focused intently on him. It was a group of five men of average build, and from the way they were dressed, Rex guessed they were probably salvagers, just off of a night of foraging for jettisoned junk around the spaceport. They were wearing grimy work clothes and covered in grease, and the one closest to him was wearing a scowl that Rex didn't appreciate at all, appeared to be drunk already, and looked determined to start something.

"Yeah, you. Don't turn away, I wanna see your face!"

Rex sighed, taking another sip of his drink. This was the last thing he needed right now, and he desperately hoped the man's attention span would be limited.

"I'm just here for a quiet drink, okay? I'm not looking for trouble."

The man started laughing, a long, grating sound that his friends quickly picked up on. Rex kept his eyes firmly fixed on a spot on the wall in front of him, hoping the man would tire and go back to his drinks.

"Hear that boys? He says he's not looking for trouble!"

The man suddenly veered into his line of sight, clutching a glass of something viscous and grey that Rex didn't recognise, but that he was willing to bet tasted something like engine coolant. He could feel prying eyes boring into his skin to the point of discomfort, and glanced up at the man in time to catch a triumphant look spread across his face.

"Not lookin' for trouble, eh? Well, maybe it's trouble you deserve!"

Rex found that his patience was wearing thin, and the tension he already felt across his entire body wasn't helping. Quietly, determinedly, he tried to ignore the taunt, setting his jaw firmly against his building frustration. He knew better than to pick fights with scum. The man had turned to his friends and was pointing furiously at Rex.

"I know what he is! He's a clone! I seen his kind before. Too expensive, take too long to grow... y'ask me the Separatists had the right idea with the droid army. Droids, they do what y' tell 'em to. Clones just ain't natural, don't do their jobs! Look at this one! Must'a run off! Probably defective."

Rex didn't know when he'd started grinding his teeth or clenching his fists, but he couldn't seem to shut out the man's words. He'd  heard this kind of talk before, and normally, he'd ignored it. It was part of the reason he and his brothers had kept to the clone bars on Coruscant. Clones were used to rough treatment from people who hated and feared them, but suddenly, the words were digging deeper than they should have. To so many, he and his brothers were inferior options to droids. That's all they'd been to the Jedi, too, and the thought overpowered Rex, filling him with fury. He'd left the Army because he'd begun to understand the way they'd been used and treated, but a part of him was still wounded, fighting viciously against the claims that had been levelled against him. _Defective?_

The man turned to his friends, his abrasive laugh leaving Rex raw.

"See? Nothing but a trained kath hound. This one took off though, must be a damn coward. What a waste. Can't even follow orders!"

 _Can't even follow orders._ The words rippled through his mind, and for a fleeting moment, everything fell silent.Rex felt something shatter within him as though it was tangible. Pain and anger and betrayal flooded through his body, cutting him off from his senses and overwhelming him at last. He couldn't hold it off any longer. He was dully aware of the sound of shattering glass and the shouts of the other men in the bar, but they echoed in his consciousness meaninglessly, drowned out by the roar of emotion he couldn't  restrain. He'd tried so hard for so long to forget the past and move forward, the memories of his fallen friends torturing him, reminding him of lives cut short. But what were their lives, really? What was his own life? He felt himself responding, no longer able to restrain himself as he took down the man that had challenged everything he'd been trained to be. He realized distantly that the man was beneath him, and felt his fists connecting with the now helpless man's writhing body. The other men in the bar were yelling, calling for help, but none of them stepped forward themselves. He was, before all else, a soldier. He was CT-7567. He felt agony course through his body as familiarity overwhelmed him, knowing now that what he feared most had finally won, that his nature could not be denied. It was almost a relief to stop resisting, after the chaos and distance, fear and uncertainty, this was the one thing Rex knew for certain he could do. He could fight, disarm, and kill, and function as a part of the machine that had made the Republic so powerful. But beneath the release, Rex was deeply afraid. It was as if his body was responding on its own while his mind remained in turmoil, and somewhere beneath the veil of confusion, the horrible memory of Tup's final moments burned itself into his mind. The fear in Tup's eyes when he'd realized what he'd done consumed Rex's consciousness, his world collapsing into the moment he'd watched his brother give in to something beyond his control. The man beneath him was screaming, but despite the fear and horror that filled him as dark realization set in, Rex couldn't stop himself. His thoughts were white noise, blurred and indistinguishable and amplified by cold terror. Out of the storm, only one thought rose to the surface of his mind, its presence clear and commanding and comforting. It was a familiar thought from the very core of his being, and in its presence, he knew who and what he was again. It was all he'd ever had, and now it was all that mattered.

_Good soldiers follow orders._


	5. Chapter 5

Placing the last crate of newly obtained  supplies in the storage hatch of the speeder, Ahsoka checked over Rex's carefully written list to be sure she hadn't forgotten to pick anything up at the market. Today's run was fairly simple, and they'd had more than enough of their own produce to trade for what they needed -- an event which didn't happen nearly as often as she'd wished it did. There wasn't much on the list today: a few repair parts for the droids, some energy cylinders, and a handful of household supplies that they were running low on. The rest of the grain they had to sell was now in the form of credits, and Ahsoka slipped her hand into the small leather pouch on her belt to make sure they were all still there. Reassured by the cool metal she could feel against her fingertips, Ahsoka sighed and shut the lid of the hatch. She felt like she'd gotten so paranoid ever since she'd lost her connection to the Force, constantly checking and rechecking every little thing she did. She didn't really trust her blinded senses, and Ahsoka knew there was no room for error in Rex's carefully balanced accounts. He ran things with precision, and given that they started from nothing on Dantooine, finances were incredibly restricted.

Securing the opening of the pouch which held their earnings for the day, she checked the chrono on the speeder's dashboard, noting that it had only just passed midday. She'd made good time in the market, and she realised now how hungry she was. She turned and headed down the road towards the cantina nearest the marketplace, hoping they'd have something that wasn't swimming in grease for lunch. The place was a dive, and frequented by a pretty rough crowd, but it was convenient, and more importantly, it was what they could afford right now. Managing finances was new to Ahsoka -- with the Republic taking care of her expenses during the war, she'd never really had the time or the inclination to find out what the general cost of living was. Learning everything for the first time was eye opening, and it made her think carefully about the sheltered life she'd led with the Jedi. Sustaining life on the 'Rim was comparatively cheap, but even so, it wasn't easy. While locally available goods were easy enough to come by and pay for, some things that Ahsoka had gotten used to on Coruscant came at a premium out here. It was something she'd been faced with the first time she and Rex had gone looking for a change of wardrobe, hoping to blend in a little more with the local colour. Almost everything sold in Khoonda's shops was fashionable in Coruscant at least a few years ago. Ahsoka wasn't particularly picky about her clothing, though, and that made the choices simpler. These days, she tended to stick to convenience: loose fitting, long sleeved tunics which protected her from the sun while she worked outside, and leggings that hugged her body and kept out of moving machinery. Her boots were old, second-hand things that she'd been assured were in prime condition. They rose to about her knee and provided her with ankle support on uneven ground, and they'd come at quite a price despite the fact that they looked like they'd seen a fair amount of wear before her time. Life, as it turned out, was expensive even on the 'Rim, and it made her realise how little she'd really known about life after all.

Nearing the cantina, Ahsoka drew the edges of her nondescript tan poncho a little closer, lifting the hood carefully over her montrals. She knew it was probably just paranoia again, but she didn't like taking her chances with the kind of people that hung out in places like this. Even though she wasn't a Jedi anymore, the events leading up to her expulsion from the Order had put her face on a lot of holoscreens, and it was pretty likely that the news of her innocence hadn't made the same kind of headlines. She wondered bitterly how many more months would have to pass before she stopped jumping at her own shadow, but stopped herself as she neared the cantina door. That was a slippery slope, and one she knew she couldn't afford to go down. Taking a deep breath, she raised her hand and placed it in the door's release switch, feeling them hiss open before her.

Almost as soon as the doors had opened, Ahsoka was slammed with a wave of noise and chaos. She could hear yelling and the sound of crunching glass, and felt her hand jerk uselessly towards the place her lightsaber would once have hung. She knew as soon as she moved that she was unprotected and flying blind, but she ran into the darkness without hesitation.

_Rex!_

The eerie hollows in her mind that once crackled with life and guided her instincts returned only echoes and isolation, but as Ahsoka's eyes adjusted to the dim light, she realised she didn't have far to look to find him.

A crowd had gathered at the centre of the cantina, contributing in equal parts shouts of rage and fear as a harried looking service droid squealed in garbled Basic, evidently trying to break up the crowd. She rushed forward, feeling suddenly sick as a dry lump rose in her throat. Surprised by her presence, a few of the crowd closest to her leapt aside, surprised by her sudden entrance, but what she saw left her momentarily speechless as though she'd taken a blaster bolt to the chest. On the ground in front of her, Rex was kneeling over a badly bloodied man, with one hand on the man's throat and one raised to strike. The man was gasping and clutching at his throat, a horrible wheezing noise escaping from his body that Ahsoka realized must have been an attempt at a scream. Rex was muttering something, but Ahsoka couldn't make it out over the strangled noises coming from the man beneath him.

"Rex!"

Her cry was barely audible as she struggled to make herself heard over the noise and the lump in her throat. She watched his fist come down, and fighting through her breathless horror, she found her voice as Rex's fist made contact with what she assumed was the man's jaw.

"Rex, stop! STOP!"

The crowd moved as Ahsoka lunged forward and grabbed Rex's arm, wrenching him off of the man with all of the force she could muster. Rex fell backwards and against her unexpectedly, throwing Ahsoka off of her balance, but she managed to steady herself as she knelt beside him. Quickly, she checked the vital signs of the man on the ground, relieved to find that he still had a pulse, albeit a faint one.

"Someone call a medic!" No one moved, and silence descended on the room. "Hurry!" Ahsoka snarled at the man standing closest to her more aggressively than she'd intended, sending him scurrying towards the door. He was either going for a medic or cutting his losses and running, but Ahsoka didn't have time to wonder which one it was going to be.

"What kriffing happened here? Rex?!"

Ahsoka turned to Rex just as he slumped to the floor, and managed to catch him under the arms as he crumpled, his head rolling backward and onto her shoulder. A man standing nearby laughed.

"Back off, _sleemo_ , or you're next," she spat, knowing somewhere in the back of her mind that the threat was wrong, but finding little inclination to care.

The man quailed and the crowd dispersed, but Ahsoka gave little thought to them, turning her attention back to Rex. She glanced over him to check for any injuries that might have resulted in blood loss, but other than a few nasty bruises, he was mostly unscathed.

"Rex, can you hear me? Are you hurt?"

His eyes were half closed, and she could see his dilated pupils moving aimlessly beneath his eyelids. She gently lifted one eyelid, but his eyes remained glazed, and he gave no indication that he had seen her. He was still muttering, and Ahsoka leaned in until she could hear his words.

"Good... soldiers follow orders... good soldiers... follow orders... orders..."

She frowned, unsure of what they meant, but knowing that she didn't have the time to figure it out right now. The service droid was heading back towards the bar with a sense of urgency that she assumed went along with calling for backup, and lowering Rex gently to the ground, she got up and cut the droid off in its trajectory.

"I'm, uh, terribly sorry about the mess my... my husband's made. He was, uh, pretty drunk, but I hope this will...er... cover the damages." Ahsoka reached into her bag and drew out a handful of credits, thrusting them at the droid, which looked at them sceptically.

"Y-y-yes, I s-s-s-suppose this would co-co-contribute to the--"

"So I trust there's no problem, then! The man down there will be fine, the medics are on their way. Thank you very much for your... discretion."

Before the droid could respond, Ahsoka had crossed the room again and was back at Rex's side. Suddenly grateful for her species' strength, she pulled one of Rex's arms across her shoulders and wrapped an arm around his waist, thankful that law enforcement tended to avoid dives like this one. The streets were relatively calm as Ahsoka struggled with Rex, taking what felt like an eternity to get him back to the speeder. He was still muttering something about following orders, and Ahsoka felt apprehension increasing the ache in her chest. She hadn't seen what or how much he'd had to drink, but he wasn't acting drunk. If anything, he was acting like he had a concussion. One way or another, she needed to get him out of the city. She knew they had a well enough stocked med kit at home, and he'd already drawn enough attention to himself for one day. Reaching the speeder at last, Ahsoka hauled Rex into the passenger seat, reclining the back slightly to keep him from slumping forward. Settling herself into the driver's seat beside him, she gripped his hand tightly for a moment, wishing he'd come back, that he'd look at her, or just acknowledge her at all. He did neither.

"...follow...orders..."

Ahsoka felt sick, but she took a deep breath and released his hand, flipping the ignition toggle and swinging the speeder back into the street. Suddenly, she realised, she was completely, devastatingly alone. She glanced over at Rex as she gave the speeder a desperate kick, sending them streaking through the city.

"Hang on, Rexy... we're going home. Just... hang on."

* * *

 

Willing the speeder to go faster, Ahsoka pushed the throttle of the speeder, feeling the wind pick up around her as the landscape blurred. Her hands were firmly clasped around the yoke as the speeder passed out of the confines of the city and out onto the plains again. She'd learned to pilot from the best, but with her Force sense muffled, driving even a speeder seemed to take an excruciating amount of focus and attention. Out of the limits of the city, the terrain was relatively flat and straight, and she was thankful for that much. As the plains streaked past, Ahsoka kept an eye on Rex through her peripheral vision, feeling the vastness of their isolation more powerfully than she ever had. Rex was still unconscious, his head tilted towards her. She could see his lips moving, and although she couldn't hear his words over the rushing of the wind around them, she knew what he must be saying. Trying to keep her eyes and mind fixed on the road in front of her, Ahsoka fought the cold panic that was trickling through her limbs. She had no real way of knowing what was wrong, and they couldn't see a doctor out here. He'd be recognised, and she knew it wouldn't be long before someone made a profit on that intel. But without the Force, what could she do?

Ahsoka found herself on the stretch back to the house much faster than she'd anticipated, her mind so preoccupied with anxieties that she barely noticed the drive, other than the occasional bend in the road that required her attention at the speed she was travelling. Easing up on the throttle, Ahsoka felt the turbines shudder as they began cycling down to a slower speed. She'd pushed the speeder harder than she ever had, and she could feel it shuddering in protest as she eased it towards the hangar, the repulsorlifts whining more than they usually did as they cooled off. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Ahsoka knew that Rex would be annoyed if she'd damaged the speeder he'd been tinkering with for so long, but the thought seemed unimportant as she brought the speeder to a halt in the hangar with a jolt. The engines cut out, and Ahsoka tried to clear her head of the residual vibrations that echoed in the silence. She glanced over at Rex, who was still unconscious, and smiled sadly. She'd never seen him look so... _helpless._ The thought was disconcerting to her, nagging at her as she slipped out of the speeder and made her way around to Rex's side. Opening the door, she slipped an arm across his back and eased him carefully out of the seat, adjusting her stance slightly to support his weight as he slipped against her.

Ahsoka was exhausted and starving, but she only noticed because of the way her body seemed weaker as she half-pulled, half-dragged Rex across the hangar and through the threshold of the door that connected the structure to the house. She managed to get him back to his room somehow, and pausing only a moment to lay his head on a pillow, Ahsoka went off in search of the med kit. She found it where she'd left it this morning after patching up an unexplained gash on Rex's arm, a memory which troubled her even more now. She thought back on the moment as she rummaged through the kit, recalling the distant, glazed look in his eyes and the halting explanation he'd given her when she'd asked. She hadn't really believed him when he'd said it was from a harvesting droid, but she knew enough to know that whatever it was, he obviously hadn't wanted to talk about it. She'd tried not to let it hurt her too much, but there was a part of her that really wished he would tell her what was going on. He always seemed to be trying to protect her -- something she realized was probably encouraged by her own mental state. She felt nausea and guilt creep icily into her chest as she worked, feeling that she had failed him, but tried to ignore the feelings. They weren't going to help Rex now. At the bottom of the med kit, she found what she was looking for -- a cold pack and a small ampule of antishock to treat the concussion. She was relieved they still had some of the Republic supplies Rex had taken with him when he'd left -- out here, basic supplies could sometimes be hard to find, and Ahsoka didn't have time to waste. Gathering what she needed, Ahsoka returned to the room, perching on the edge of the bed beside Rex. He was breathing normally, and the muttering had finally stopped. Activating the cold pack, Ahsoka placed it gently on Rex's forehead, letting her fingers trace the line of his jaw as she pulled her hand away. She couldn't see any visible bruising, but she decided that following standard procedure would be safest in this situation. Picking up the little ampule of antishock, Ahsoka checked the expiry signature, relieved to find it was still in date.

She reached towards Rex again, lifting his chin and turning his head gently to the side to prep a spot for the injection, but as she moved his head, Rex's eyes fluttered open and he sat bolt upright in bed, his hand locking onto Ahsoka's wrist with an iron grip. Ahsoka gasped, dropping the ampule in shock, but attempting to pull her wrist free only made Rex's grip tighter. His eyes were glassy and unfocused, and his breathing was ragged and panicked.

"Rex, it's just me! It's Ahsoka! You're safe!"

He did not release her, and she could see beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. Ahsoka felt fear welling up within her -- she'd never seen a concussed soldier act this way before. Rex was acting erratic and strangely aggressive, and he didn't seem to be aware of his surroundings at all. Ahsoka felt her vision blur as she fought to hold back tears. It was just the two of them out here, and now, when Rex needed her, Ahsoka had no idea how to help. He'd always been there for her, and he'd always seemed to know what to do. Her heart pounding in her chest, Ahsoka moved towards him slowly, extending her free hand toward him cautiously. He seemed not to notice, his eyes rolling under half-closed lids. Ahsoka placed her hand on his cheek. His skin was burning beneath her fingers, but she kept her hand as steady as she could manage, stroking his face gently.

"Rexy, please... come back..."

Overcome and exhausted, Ahsoka slumped forward, holding her head in her free hand and letting the tears she was fighting run their course. She needed guidance now more than ever, and all around her, silence pressed in and threatened to suffocate her. Without her masters, the army, the Force, she was trapped in cold, hopeless isolation. She felt guilt and self loathing crush her. _Is this all that's left of me when the Force is gone? Is this all I am?_

"...'Soka...? Wha...what happened?"

The sound of Rex's voice snapped Ahsoka back into the present, and lifting her head, she found his eyes still bleary, but focused on her.

"Rex! I was so worried about you! You weren't responding to me, I was scared..."

Rex slowly moved his eyes downward to where his arm was still clasping Ahsoka's wrist, and realizing what he was doing, he released her immediately, panic flashing in his eyes as he realized he'd left welts in her skin. Noticing his horror, Ahsoka responded quickly.

"It's okay, I'm not hurt."

"That's not true. I bruised you... I don't even remember it happening..."

"It's not a big deal -- "

"It is to me," Rex growled, his voice heavy and on the verge of breaking.

"What's going on, Rex? You... you don't have a concussion, do you? Please, talk to me..."

"I... I wish it was that simple. Look, there's... a lot I need to tell you, but I don't think we have much time. You're not safe with me anymore. I need you to do me a favour, and you _can't_ argue with me on this. Can you do that?"

Ahsoka nodded wordlessly, her voice suspended in fear.

"There's a box under the bed with some Republic-issue stuff I kept. I need you to find the binders and cuff me. _Hurry_ Ahsoka!"

Ahsoka stared for a moment, not entirely comprehending what Rex had asked of her.

" _Cuff_ you? Rex, I need you to relax, okay? You're running a fever, I don't think you're thinking straight --"

"You're right, I'm not! That's why I need you to do this, _please!"_

It was the desperation in his voice that moved Ahsoka to do as he asked. She was sceptical of his request, but Rex was clearly panicked about something, and if putting binders on him would calm him down, she would have to do it. Ahsoka pulled the box out from underneath the bed and opened it, digging past an assortment of old gear until she found the binders at the bottom. She pulled them out and held them up, and Rex extended his hands immediately, the plea still written into the lines in his face. Frowning, Ahsoka did as he asked, clamping the binders onto his wrists as delicately as she could. As she did so, Rex sighed, his shoulders relaxing as he slumped backwards against the headboard of the bed, closing his eyes.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on now?"

Rex opened his eyes again after a moment, a deeply exhausted sadness pooling in them. She'd never seen him look this way before. For as long as she'd known him, Rex had been strength and wisdom and power. He was the man she'd wanted at her back in a firefight, the captain who kept his head when they were hemmed in and outgunned. Now when her eyes met his, she realized they were a perfect reflection of her own fears and anxieties. He was just as lost as she was.

"Ahsoka, there's... there are some things you should know. About why I deserted."

"You mean you didn't do it because you missed me?" Ahsoka teased, trying desperately to ward off the dread she felt at Rex's tone. Rex gave her a grateful half-smile, but his eyes remained dark.

"Only partly. I, uh... I don't imagine you heard about what happened to Tup. He was a good soldier, but he cracked during a campaign on Ringo Vinda. Shot a Jedi general at point blank. He just... 'Soka, he _changed_. We didn't -- none of us saw it coming, and then he was gone! And then Fives! Fives was strong, I _knew_ him, 'Soka!"

Rex's voice hovered on the edge of breaking, and Ahsoka placed her hand lightly over his bound ones, fighting hard to project calm. She couldn't entirely follow what Rex was talking about, and his voice had taken on a hard edge that bordered on hysteria. His glassy eyes were wide, an unhealthy flush darkening his cheeks.

"Wait, slow down. Breathe. Tell me what happened, slowly. What happened to Tup and Fives, Rex?"

Fives took Tup to Kamino... doctors said they were gonna find out what was wrong with him, but he died. They both died as strangers. They did things... stuff they never would have done before..."

"Why didn't you tell me any of this before...?" Ahsoka's voice was soft, and she hoped that her question hadn't come out as an accusation. When Rex spoke, she could feel the delicate vibrations of his agonized words echo through the hollows of her montrals and down into her body. It was how she sensed sound, but in this case, it was more than just sound she was sensing. It was every strained word and shaken outburst -- hairline fractures splintering the emotional armour that had made Rex the soldier that he was. She could feel the vibrations that formed the cracks in her own body, and she was powerless to stop them from spreading.

Rex drew a shuddering breath.

"Honestly, I... I didn't know what to make of it myself. Still don't know if I do. Last time I saw Fives, he... had the same look in his eye. He was acting... erratic. The doctor in charge of Tup said he'd caught a virus, but Fives said it was a conspiracy, a cover up of the truth..."

"The... truth?"

Ahsoka felt her heart sinking. She hadn't left that long before Rex, all of this had happened so fast. She was stunned to hear Tup had turned on a general , and the direction this was going made her uneasy.

"We were engineered with chips in our heads, 'Soka. Doctors said they kept us docile. But Fives didn't believe it. He removed his own, and was trying to warn me about them. Even Fives snapped. Tup and Fives... what I did back there... and now they're gone!"

"Fives was killed? By whom?"

"Coruscant  Guard. Said he was dangerous after he'd removed his chip... he threatened the Chancellor! And after what I did back there... 'Soka, you _can't_ take these binders off of me! I can't end up like Tup...the things he kept saying... no clone would... what he was repeating... didn't make any _sense_... he was _defective_..."

Ahsoka could see the pain in Rex's eyes and hated how helpless she felt. For all his sincerity in the importance of doing his duty as a clone, the loss of Fives had shaken him to his core. For all of his stoic silence, she'd seen how restless Rex had been since they'd come to Dantooine. He tried to hide it from her, but she knew he wasn't sleeping at night, and the way his eyes fixed on an indeterminate point in the distance when he thought she wasn't watching. And then there was Tup. She didn't know much about the circumstances surrounding Tup's death, but given what she'd just seen Rex go through, and the little he'd told her, it didn't take much imagination to guess why he was worried. The words Rex had been repeating cast a shadow over her thoughts. _Good soldiers follow orders._ She wondered darkly if Tup's mind had been filled with the same thoughts.

"Rex, you are _not_ defective. You're not well, but we'll make this better, I promise. Just, stay with me, okay? Focus on me."

"'Soka, I...  it happened once, I can't hold it back... I can't tell what's real and what's a nightmare anymore... I can't end up like Tup! You need to... you need to go! Get away from me! I've done... seen _horrible_ things..."

"I'm not leaving you," she growled softly, squeezing his hand tightly. "I'm not afraid of you."

Rex met her gaze, a deep sadness in his eyes.

"At the end, Tup was _gone_... it won't even _be_ me anymore..."

Ahsoka felt painfully hollow, but she tried to steady herself for Rex's sake. She could see his eyes slipping out of focus, and his speech was fragmented and strained, as if every word he chose was being pulled from a distant place in his mind. The Rex she knew was trickling away, and she felt as though a wall divided them even with her hands gripping his.

"You're not going _anywhere_ Rex, okay? You _can't_..."

His eyes focused for a moment, the physical strain of so simple an act causing his body to tense. Ahsoka brushed his cheek softly to relax him, and she saw his tension ease slightly at her touch. She knew he was fighting to stay with her, imprisoned in his own mind. She was desperate, grasping through the panic in her mind for anything she knew that might help him. She hadn't been trained very much in healing -- they'd always had a medic around for that, and without the ability to sense him as she'd once done, she had no idea what was truly wrong. For a brief moment, she saw a flicker of fear linger in Rex's eyes as he focused them on her, and slowly let them fall shut. Ahsoka strangled a sob before it could escape her, knowing Rex needed her now. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body and drew her knees up to her chin, suddenly unable to stop shivering as she watched him. Rex was unconscious, but his body was still tense, spasms violently wrenching him out of his resting position. Picking up the cold pack from where it had fallen when he'd been briefly conscious, Ahsoka placed it back on his forehead, feeling the futility of the gesture. It seemed so pathetic and useless, but it was all she could think to do. She was exhausted, her energy entirely spent. She hadn't eaten all day, and her body ached from the tension she'd put it through all day, but none of those things registered in her mind. Ahsoka's focus was entirely on Rex. The man who'd left the only family he'd ever had, and who'd crossed the stars to find her again. The man who'd fought at her side, probably against his better judgement more than once, because he trusted her. He'd _trusted_ her. And now she was letting him down. She rested her cheek on her knee, focusing on his breathing, which was shallow and ragged and strained. She closed her eyes, trying to reach beyond the confines of her body, to breach the wall that was keeping her from him. But she felt nothing. Her pleas were met with silence and emptiness, and once again she felt herself sealed away from the life that surrounded her. Her guiding light remained dark, and her own consciousness echoed through her mind, irritatingly loud and preventing her from hearing and feeling the subtle waves of the Force she'd known once. Rex was right beside her, but he felt further from her than he'd ever been.

* * *

 

She woke with a jolt, feeling Rex's body jerk unexpectedly beside her. Rubbing exhaustion from her eyes, Ahsoka straightened herself from the slump she'd fallen into, her back arched and sore. She felt a pang of guilt strike her as she realised it was now dark outside. Night had fallen while she'd been asleep, but Rex's conditioned hadn't improved. She frowned as she glanced over him, realizing that he was straining against the binders, his wrists nearly raw from the chafing metal. She hated the idea of restraining him in this condition, but he'd been so adamant that she left the binders in place. Still, the sight of the metal cutting into his wrists pained her, and Ahsoka reached towards him to try and readjust the cuffs from where they currently sat on his wrists. As soon as her fingers made contact with his skin, Rex thrashed reflexively, causing her to pull her hand back in alarm. He'd been more or less still since they'd spoken earlier, but he opened his eyes again now, struggling restlessly against the binders with a distant, glazed look in his eyes. Worried that he'd injure himself further, she reached towards him again, but this time, he focused, his eyes locked onto her with hardened anger. Ahsoka froze, feeling his gaze burning her. There was something hard and steely there that she'd never seen before. At least, she hadn't seen him direct it at her. She knew he wasn't well, but the glare cut deeply regardless. This wasn't him. Something was wrong.

"Rex? What's the matter...?"

His response was slow, and no hint of recognition flickered in his eyes, which remained firmly locked on Ahsoka. His brow furrowed, as if in concentration. Ahsoka could see beads of sweat forming there.

"Rex..." Her voice was soft now, pleading, for whatever it was worth. Any minute now, it would pass. His angry glare would melt and he'd be himself again. He _had_ to be. "Rex, it's me... it's Ahsoka..."

She reached towards him again, but his eyes snapped to her hand, tracking its movement. Without any warning, he jerked away from her.

" _Jedi_."

His voice was a low, deadly growl. Ahsoka felt the word pierce her heart, her world collapsing into silence. He'd spat it out like a curse, that little word that had once been everything she had. Like a condemnation.

"...What?"

"Jedi... betrayed us... good soldiers... follow... orders..."

The strength to speak came only with agonized pain. She was afraid, but she needed to understand, or at least to try. Fear of what she knew she must face chilled her, and she fought to steady her voice.

"And what are your orders... Captain?"

He looked her in the eyes, cold steel flashing where once he'd kept respect and affection. Rex was gone, and in his place, only the soldier remained. She'd seen that look in his eyes before. It was the look he'd gotten in the face of an enemy, of something which stood between him and his purpose. She felt herself recoil as though he'd struck her, wondering why despite her agony, she did not bleed.

"Jedi are...traitors... kill... the Jedi..."

She could feel herself backing away as Rex became frantic, his eyes rolling back as he struggled to get free. To carry out his orders.

_I couldn't save him._

The gravity of her loss crushed her with the force of a collapsing star. Her presence made him restless and agitated, and with what will remained at her command, she retreated, clutching at the wound his words had torn into her chest. The door hissed shut behind her, and for a moment, she leaned against it, her forehead pressed to the cool metal, fingers digging grooves into its unforgiving surface. She no longer felt the need to hold back her tears, and she released them at last, feeling them run down her cheeks leaving burning trails in their wake. On the other side of the barrier that divided them, she could hear him repeating the only thing he seemed to have left, the words of an order that had torn the lives from those who had raised her, and those to whom she had once pledged her life. In a horrible moment of clarity, Rex's words seemed suddenly coherent and logical. He and his brothers had been trained from birth to do one thing well -- to obey. Rex, Tup, Fives... all of them had been independent thinkers insofar as they were given the liberty to be. But grown for the purpose of war, they were taught many things that became embedded in their minds, perhaps even forgotten for a time.

_Kill the Jedi._

It was these very orders that had, in a devastating instant, plunged the balance of the Force into surging, terrible agony. She'd felt it rage within her, the sensation at once like fire and ice and excruciating pain, and responding with what must have been a survival instinct, she reacted in terror and shut it all away. Now she wondered which was worse -- the inferno she had faced, or the darkness she'd been trapped in when the blaze died out. She was suspended in darkness, her heart pounding hard enough to take her breath away. Across one thin barrier, the orders that had destroyed her world were burning in the only world she had remaining. Ashamed, afraid, and  blind, Ahsoka turned and ran.


	6. Chapter 6

Her heart was still pounding when her legs threatened to give out beneath her, finally succumbing to the strain of hunger and exhaustion. Ahsoka slowed down, struggling to draw breath through her tightened throat. For a moment, she was disoriented. Little of her surroundings had made it through to her through the darkness and the tears in her eyes, and honestly, she didn't particularly care where she'd ended up. She'd believed in order and purpose once, and she'd felt the way it burned to ashes in her heart, leaving an echoing, empty hole. And then there was Rex. The thought of the way she'd left him behind made her sick and disgusted with herself, but he'd be safer without her there. She was the catalyst, she realized as her stomach twisted itself into a knot. She'd been pushing him closer and closer to the brink with her presence. He'd had _orders_. They'd all had orders, and none of them had known until it was too late. She was certain that they hadn't been aware of the orders all along, but she wished she could be as certain about everything else she thought she'd known. She'd learned a long time ago that the Republic's war was far from simply the light versus the dark. She'd seen people she'd been taught to view as enemies doing what they believed was right, just as she was. And she'd seen those she thought were friends betray her. Nothing was obvious anymore, and it had probably never been to begin with, but there'd been something comforting in following the designs of the Republic, in knowing that there was something at work greater than her own existence.

And then she'd seen it fall. Or rather, she'd felt it, and that had been all the more terrible. She'd felt the wounds and fear and destruction, the voices of her friends and former masters tearing through the horrible roar, only to be silenced. Only silence remained. Silence, and Rex. His voice had guided her out of the darkness, and she'd latched onto it like a crippled starfighter being guided to a docking bay. He'd never questioned her. Whatever misgivings he'd held in his heart, he'd kept firmly there. Mired in her own agony, she hadn't stopped to consider how the news that the Jedi had supposedly betrayed the Republic, and by extension his brothers, had influenced him. Rex had been a fixed point in her universe, and now she'd lost him, too.

Truly looking around her for the first time since she'd run, Ahsoka recognized the jagged rock formations that loomed overhead. She wasn't sure why she'd ended up here again, but somehow the familiar peaks were comforting. Ignoring the weakness in her legs and the shortness of her breath, Ahsoka willed herself to push forward until she was immersed in the chaotic stone. It was a strange place to find refuge, but Ahsoka felt somehow shielded by the rubble that surrounded her. Home was a false sense of security -- even on Dantooine, she knew that both she and Rex were easily identifiable. This place was quiet, sheltered. A familiar gap in the rocks drove her forward, and suddenly she stood in the centre of the rocky circle she'd stood in the night Rex had followed her here. In the darkness, the stone fragments that surrounded the edge of the round clearing looked almost like pillars. Ahead of her, a small pile of rocks stood alone where she'd stacked them. She remembered the way her hands had been shaking as she piled them there, the way she tried to delay a confirmation of what she already knew. Every fibre of her being had been searching, grasping for a hint of what once flowed so freely through her. Ahsoka collapsed, feeling the earth claw at her knees as she sunk down onto the cold stone. She felt completely directionless, the way she'd felt for brief moments out in the void piloting her starfighter when she'd lost sight of the ships around her. Space was disorienting. There were no directions, no "up" or "down". Only vast, cold, nothingness. It was enough to make anyone who spent enough time in it lose their sense of perspective.

She let the cold consume her, feeling the night breeze glide over the contours of her body, which was now curled in a tight ball against the cold stone. She felt as though she was bleeding into the ground beneath, her terror, guilt, and fear pooling around her, leaving the silence she'd feared above all. Tonight, Ahsoka did not fight the echoes within her. It was like opening her eyes for the first time in a very long time. Before her, the chasm yawned, dark and endless and ever expanding. She forced herself to look into it and listen to the ringing silence, facing the hole that was all that remained where the Force had once dwelt within her. She was afraid, as she often was, the image of Rex locked away and on the brink of consciousness tearing at her fraying heart. She knew now that there was nowhere she could hide from the reality she'd faced -- Rex had been her last refuge, and he'd had his own private storm to weather. The cold wind danced across her skin, and from some distant place, she could feel her body shivering uncontrollably. She'd failed. She'd failed them both. Ahsoka realised how terrified she'd been of this moment her entire life, the way she'd prepared and trained and taught herself to deny the terror that war stirred. She remembered what Master Yoda had taught her.

"Allow yourself to fear, you must not. Down a dark path, fear leads. Calm you must feel, flowing from the Force, if win this war and restore peace, we will."

And she'd believed it. She had lived and fought that way every day of her life, fighting attachment to the clones she might never see again. She'd tried to ease the memories of the deaths of her men, and with Anakin laughing at her side, it had almost been possible. There'd been a cause then, a purpose. The day she left the Order behind her, she'd felt the fear creep into her at last, no longer held at bay by the security her masters had given her. She'd never felt the Force as strongly as she had the day the Orders had come, but in that moment, she'd felt through the agony the way the flames of her former friends' lives burned out like candles. But the worst had been Anakin's suffering, the pain that had been the last throes of agony before the Force had trickled away at last. Anakin was not dead, of this much she was certain. His pain had burned her, coursing through her veins with the heat of a collapsing star. Everything had been colder from that moment on. She wondered where he was now, if he was being held, tortured... She felt her body sag as she released a heavy breath. There was nothing she could do for her old master now. He would know what to do, he always did. It was Rex who needed her now.

_I'm scared._

The thought sat alone in the silence of her mind, and the storm seemed to fall somehow silent. She'd fought it for so long that it seemed strange to acknowledge the sensation at last. A shiver ran down her spine, or perhaps it was a breeze?

_We all fear, Little Exile._

Ahsoka felt her heart stop. Her eyes snapped open and she scrambled to her knees, squinting through the darkness for the source of the voice. It hadn't come from within her, and yet, she hadn't exactly _heard_ it, either.

"...Hello?"

As soon as the word passed her lips, she felt stupid. Falling back into a sitting position, she dragged her knees up under her chin and pressed her forehead against them.

"I'm losing my head..."

_What you sense is real, Little Exile._

Taking a shaky breath, Ahsoka lifted her head and opened her eyes. The air suddenly seemed to feel as though it was crackling with electricity. She stepped away from the void in her chest and rose, wrapping her arms tightly around her.

"Who... _what_... are you?"

_An Exile. Like you._

Whirling on her heel, Ahsoka felt the breath leave her body as her eyes registered what she was seeing before her. Shining in the cold night, a figure stood in the stone ring with her. The figure -- a female form -- seemed disconnected from the world around her, and Ahsoka felt a shiver run down her spine as she realized that the figure was no more material than the moonlight that lit the night.

"No... I'm seeing things... this isn't happening... you aren't real!"

The figure drifted closer, slowly, but not menacingly. Ahsoka took a step backwards, the fear within her constricting the muscles in her body. She could make out features now -- the figure was a young woman, clad unmistakably the robes of the Jedi order. Her eyes were piercing and powerful, but had a softness to them that made Ahsoka hesitate. The spectre smiled, slowly opening her arms in a gesture Ahsoka took to be reassurance.

_I am not made of crude matter, if that is what you mean, but I am as real as you, Little Exile. I am a manifestation of the living Force, in the form of one who once walked the path you do._

Ahsoka smiled sadly, feeling the pang of loss in her heart.

"That can't be true. I... I can't feel the Force anymore. It's... gone."

_Gone? Little Exile, the Force is never truly gone. But it can cut deeper than any weapon. That is what it did to you. It is not an absence you feel. It is a wound._

"A wound? I don't understand... I can't feel it anymore, it's like I'm walled in away from it..."

_You cannot feel it because you try to heal the damage it has caused by forgetting. The Force bleeds from you. The emptiness you feel is the echo of the place the Force once resonated within you. It is not lost to you forever, Little Exile, but to fill the empty spaces once more, you must reopen the wound. You must let the Force return._

Ahsoka felt her throat tighten, her breath shallow and ragged in terror. Her voice was barely a whisper.

"I _can't_... I could hear them all, feel the way the warmth of each life was taken away... and my Master... I felt his suffering... it would _destroy_ me..."

The Exile bowed her head, a look of deep sorrow in her eyes.

_It might. What you felt is a heavy burden to bear for even the strongest Force sensitives. I cannot guarantee your safety. But perhaps I can give you hope. I once bore the wound that you bore, and in healing it, I grew stronger. I restored light to dark places long abandoned. Tell me, Little Exile: Is not there one you love who is lost in that darkness? The many-faced Soldier, blood of the Hunter?_

Ahsoka fought the tears, but she could not restrain them.

"Rex," she sobbed, angrily wiping a tear from her cheek. "His name is Rex. He's a clone, something's happened to him I don't entirely understand... he... told me there was a chip in his head... I think he's been... _programmed_..."

The Exile raised her head, a spark in her ghostly eyes. Ahsoka searched the look anxiously, her breath caught in her throat, praying for an answer.

_He is not beyond hope, Little Exile. Tell me, do you know where it is you now stand?_

"It's... a ruin or something..."

_Long before your birth, the birth of your Republic, the Jedi built an enclave here. This ring in which we stand was once a council chamber. The chamber in which I was pronounced Exile for the final time. But the enclave is strong with the Force. It is why I can appear to you now as I do._

"I don't understand... what does this have to do with Rex?"

_In this enclave, one thought lost to the darkness was returned to the light. The Prodigal Knight, they called him. It was here, under Dantooine's plains, that the Jedi reforged his shattered mind._

"Reforged... I _do_ remember a story... Master Nu used to tell it to the younglings. About a great Jedi, saved from darkness by the wisdom and grace of the old masters. He was redeemed... but _reforged_? I'm not sure I understand what you mean..."

_Your masters may not have known the full truth, Little Exile. He was saved, but not by the wisdom of the masters. He was rebuilt through the Force. Together, the masters wielded the Force as a fine blade. They erased the darkness, the memories of hatred and anger. They left a new man, a new life. If you allow the Force to return, you may be able to do the same for your Soldier._

Ahsoka laughed bitterly through her tears.

"But in the story, the Jedi was saved by _masters_! I'm not even a Jedi anymore, and there's only me. How can I possibly do something that took the strength and knowledge of a council to achieve? What you ask is... it's impossible."

_Perhaps. It has never been attempted, you are correct. But the Force is strong in this place, and if you allow it to be, it can be strong in you, Little Exile. Trust in your strength. Your Soldier is lost unless you can return him to the light._

"But the pain..."

_Pain is a part of healing, Little Exile. But the choice is yours._

"If it will help Rex, I'll do anything! Please, just... tell me what I have to do."

The ghost was silent for a long moment, and Ahsoka hung on the emptiness with hungry despair. She realized the strangeness of the situation, and wondered if she was risking too much by trusting this entity. She knew next to nothing about whose form the spectre took, and she knew somewhere in her heart that it could be a trick to lure her into the darkness. _A Jedi forms no attachments._ Perhaps this was why.  It made her vulnerable, easy to manipulate, eager to hear what she wished to hear. And yet, it did not matter now. Rex needed her. And he'd do the same for her.

_Your wound runs deep, Little Exile. You are a child of the war. Your masters taught you to reject and hide fear, but it dwells within us all. It is a part of us, but it needs not control us. It is when it controls us, when we let it consume us and fill us with regret and resentment, that it breeds the darkness. Face it, acknowledge it, but know that it does not define you. When you stop running from it, the pain may return. It is not easy to hear the suffering of the galaxy. Mourn them, but do not let grief prevent you from feeling the way they return to Force again. Listen for the symphony, Little Exile. It lives within you still._

The fear was waiting precisely where she'd left it, inhabiting the echoing places in her heart. She felt Yoda's words pushing them away as they always seemed to do, but she knew that this denial had always been temporary. With the words of the Exile echoing in her mind, Ahsoka reached out again, clearing a space for the memories. She knew how to fight them. She'd done that since she was a youngling. But tonight, the memories returned, and she did not resist. She watched the faces of those she'd lost pass through her mind -- good men who'd known no choice in the way they lived their lives. She felt the sorrow she'd tried to hide now, without the mask she'd worn for her master. They had died for a cause that now seemed distant, murky. But that time had passed.

_You know the teachings of the Code, Little Exile. You have known them from the beginning. It was what they taught you first. It was what defined you. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no death, there is the Force. But there is another way._

Unbidden, the moment returned to her. She stood beside her starfighter once again, dwarfed in the hangar of the Republic warship, now significantly lacking the men she'd been instructed to command. She'd lost them that night, and she'd finally understood what it meant to lead. She'd been fourteen years old, and she'd been their commander.

_Emotion, yet peace._

They'd died at her order, and she would never forget them. She remembered every last moment, the strangled screams and bursts of static over their ship's comms as she'd lost them one by one. She felt the pain of that loss completely. She'd owed it to their memories. But with the agony, she felt quiet acceptance. The choice had been hers. The command had been given.  But these things could not be changed through hurt or anger or despair. Somehow, that knowledge was comfort.

There had been too many deaths to count, but fighting alongside her masters, they'd seemed rational. She thought she knew where she stood, what side she'd chosen. The Jedi stood for peace, as they'd always done. She was taught to know her rank, know her place, know her Code. To be a master, it seemed to her, was to have accessed the knowledge of the stars, to know the _answers_. And suddenly, she remembered the fire. She'd been trapped in a warehouse, hemmed in between the soldiers she'd once fought alongside, and a Sith. Or so she'd thought. All of the knowledge of the masters hadn't prepared her for the moment she was put on trial for a crime she did not commit, and for the moment she learned that it was her most trusted friend who had stood against her that night in the flames.

_Ignorance, yet knowledge._

She hadn't understood. Barriss had been a sister to her, and something imperceptible had torn her away. The threat of the Dark Side loomed ever present in her life. She'd been trained to see it, and yet for all her knowledge, she'd been unable to save Barriss. Barriss had found an answer, and yet for all her newfound knowledge, she'd been blinded. Her path to the place she now stood had been the path of a padawan learner, just as Barriss' had been, but on her own journey, she found herself confronted with new questions rather than answers. An answer was an ending, but admitting ignorance was an open door. Her mind's eye lingered for a moment on an image of Senator Amidala and her separatist friend as they'd met in a secret moment of unity and peace. The Jedi did not have all of the answers. The Republic did not define galactic policy. And this was as it should be.

Slowly, these shadows died from her mind, and she was left in darkness. This now was left, and it filled her with strange dread. She saw him in her mind's eye the way she'd always seen him -- cavalier, bold, fearless. He was everything she'd tried to be. From the moment she'd met her master, she'd wanted to prove herself in his eyes. She'd watched him fight, certainly. Anakin was a gifted pilot, and his lightsaber cut effortless paths across the battlefield. But there had always been more to Anakin than destruction, and it was the light within him that had drawn her to him and filled her with respect and awe. As often as Anakin destroyed, she'd watched him fiercely protect. She'd admired that above all, that when faced with a choice between the mission and the lives of his friends, Anakin had defied the choice altogether. He refused defeat. And he'd won. But Ahsoka had seen Anakin bound up in his concern, rash in his vengeance. In the darkness on Mortis, she'd woken from a deep, cold sleep and found his arms around her. She remembered the way he'd held her for a moment, as though he'd found salvation, but she knew from the defiance still burning in his eyes that there had been a cost.

_Passion, yet serenity._

He'd been a slave once, her master. She remembered the look in his eyes as he'd faced the Zygerrian queen, the way they'd flashed like deadly steel in defiance of all the oppression that she represented to him. There's been a time when love had served her master, given him strength, guided his impulses. Passion had aided him, but in conjunction with fear, she'd watched him fracture. He'd tried to suppress his emotions, but they'd forced their way free until he was blind and reckless.

It was the reckless, unbalanced passion that she'd seen in his eyes on the evening she'd said goodbye to him for the last time. He'd been lit from within with despair as he'd reached for her, and she had felt the way he'd tried to stay her with the force of his will. He'd been hard to refuse, but her mind was set. She felt his eyes upon her as she'd turned away, refusing to turn and meet his gaze one more time. She had seen enough to know what she had to do. She'd felt his presence lessen that night, dwindling to nothingness, and a strange quiet took her as the Force calmed, its surface no longer rippling in his presence. Until the day of the Order. Ahsoka felt her body tense as the heat of destruction and death filled her again, the screams and cries echoing in the hollows of her montrals until the vibrations seemed deafening. She felt the white hot pain threaten to tear her body apart, the memories and losses pushing her towards the dark chasm that yawned again before her.

_Death, yet the Force._

She could not deny what she felt -- it was the sensation of destruction, the sound of final breaths and screams and prayers, the heat of thousands of flames before they were simultaneously destroyed. But it was also life. She felt the voices build within her, the way threads of thought and wisdom bound the memories of the lost to the motion of the future. They were gone, and yet their essence persisted. It could not be extinguished. The Force was eternal. Ahsoka felt her body strain and collapse, and the noise coalesced into song. _Harmony._ And then there was only silence.

* * *

 

_Little Exile... the dawn approaches..._

It took a moment for the echo of the Exile's voice to register in Ahsoka's mind, and longer still for physical sensations to return to her. From somewhere deep within her body, her consciousness flickered into being, extending slowly until it filled her once again. Cautiously, she opened her eyes, wondering through her dazed state if any of it had been real.  She was lying in the centre of the stone ring, the place that had once been a council chamber. Over the edge of the jagged rocks, a hint of light danced on the horizon. Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself shakily up into a sitting position. She was still weak, exhausted, aching... but something faint within her sparked, and it took her breath away. The empty places that had seemed so vast within her seemed smaller now, the shadows receding back to the corners of her mind. Glancing around her, she noticed the Exile's spectral form watching her, barely perceptible in the lightening sky. Her expression was difficult to read, but a glimmer of something like recognition flickered there.

_The wound is healing now, Little Exile. You will not be without pain, but the bleeding has stopped. Can you hear the galaxy's song again?_

Ahsoka closed her eyes, centring herself as well as she could manage. The pain and fear were not gone, but they did not impede her. She reached out carefully, spreading her consciousness to the edges of her being, calling out to the world around her. And softly, in what was no more than a whisper, she felt the Force return her call. Ahsoka's eyes fluttered open, tears clouding her vision. Extending one hand, she let her body's rhythms fall in step with her surroundings, gently easing her influence toward the pile of stones she'd been unable to move not so long ago. She felt the way the wound tore at her as she worked, but she accepted the pain for what she now knew it to be -- healing. Slowly, unsteadily, the stone at the top of the pile rose into the air, and at her command, drifted to her and settled in the palm of her hand. She curled her fingers around it protectively and turned her eyes upwards towards the Exile, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"I... I think I _can_."

The Exile smiled, a warm, gentle smile. Although the ghost's face appeared young, there was something ancient and wise in her eyes that filled Ahsoka with determination.

"Exile... how can I help Rex?"

_Go to your Soldier, Little Exile. You must bring him here. Here, in the ruins beneath the place you now stand, are the chambers in which the Prodigal Knight's mind was rewritten. Trust your feelings, listen to the echoes of the Force that remain in the ancient stones. I will guide you to the chamber, but I cannot influence what happens within. Now hurry, Little Exile... may the Force be with you._

"But how will I know what I must do? I don't know the first thing about healing, let alone rewriting someone's memories! What if I make it _worse_?"

Silence. The Exile was gone. Ahsoka released her breath in a tense _huff_ , running her hands along the sides of her montrals in a gesture of frustration. She wanted to believe the Exile. She wanted to believe in this plan. But all she knew so far was spectacularly vague, and the task she was expected to complete would require mastery over the Force. She'd barely been able to draw the stone towards her without it shuddering in her grasp, but to wield the Force as a scalpel? To use it to rewrite programming she barely understood? She realised she was up and pacing the clearing, gripping the rock in her hand as she moved. There were so many things she didn't understand, but Rex's condition was likely only getting worse in her absence. She'd just have to trust that the right course of action would become clear. She'd been gone too long already, and she could see the deep pinks and purples of the dawn streaked across the sky. Straightening herself with purpose, she headed for the edge of the circle, picking her way across the stones and back out onto the plains. She had no idea how she was going to get Rex to the ruins -- last she'd seen him he was bound and incoherent, recognising her only as a potential target. The thought made her chest constrict, her grip on the little stone threatening to crush it to dust. She realised dully that her pace had increased -- she was almost running now as she pushed herself back towards the farmhouse. She'd figure something out. She _had_ to.

Ahsoka slowed to catch her breath on the bluff overlooking the farm, still dark in the twilight gloom. She could just make out the glow of the light that came from Rex's room. Drawing a breath to steady herself, she made space for the thought that had been lurking in the shadows of her mind. In his current state, her presence might do Rex more harm than good. The memory of the way he'd looked at her the last time she'd seen him flashed into her mind -- the cold, impartial look of a soldier with orders to follow. It had terrified her to see the recognition drain from his eyes, but in the light of the dawn, determination outweighed fear. She was going to bring him back. Bracing herself for what she might find, Ahsoka made her way towards the house, hoping for both their sakes that he was sleeping.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait on this one, I hope you enjoy it! Just a heads up that this chapter contains a few KotOR 1 and 2 spoilers, so please be warned before reading it!

Ahsoka hesitated for a moment, her fingers lingering over the door release button just outside Rex's room. She felt no vibrations of movement through the wall, but a white noise now filled the silence  that she knew to be the ripples in the Force made by an unsettled mind. The hesitation only lasted a moment -- Ahsoka felt her body respond to her quickened pulse, preparing itself for impact. Biting down on her lower lip, she refused to allow herself to dwell on what had happened. It was unproductive at best, and she knew very well that clouded judgement was something she could not afford. Crouching slightly, she settled into a defensive stance that she hoped she wouldn't end up needing and pressed the button on the wall before her.

The door hissed open and Ahsoka took careful stock of the room, easing out of her tense position. Rex was motionless on the floor, leaning slumped against the bed where he'd dropped in exhaustion. Still cautious, Ahsoka crossed the room and knelt at Rex's side, placing two fingers against the artery at his throat and checking for a pulse. It was there, faint but constant, and from her spot beside him, she could just make out the faint rise and fall of his chest. He'd lost consciousness, but he hadn't gone out without a struggle -- he'd been fighting the binders, and his wrists were raw and bloodied from the unyielding metal. He must have been too frenzied to know what he was doing, and the thought unnerved her. Ahsoka rose, frowning. She had no real way of knowing how long he'd be unconscious, and her work would become much more challenging if he woke in the same state she'd left him. Moving quickly, she went in search of the medical kit and returned with the last of the bacta patches and a sleeping injection. The idea of having to sedate Rex troubled her, but it troubled her far less than the idea of having to fight him.

Removing the chafing binders, Ahsoka carefully patched up his wrists. The cuts weren't deep enough to be dangerous, but despite the fact that he'd asked her to cuff him, Ahsoka still felt guilty for leaving him this way. She only had one shot of the sedative, and given Rex's current state, she decided to save it, tucking the ampule into one of the deep pockets on her work leggings.

"I'm going to make this right," she muttered, crouching beside him and pulling one of his arms across her shoulders. He was heavy and her body struggled against the dead weight, but she felt the warmth of the Force's ancient fire in her limbs, and with its strength, she stood. Half pushing, half dragging, Ahsoka found her way through the darkness of the home they'd painstakingly built. She tried not to let the memories distract her, but all the same she saw them -- Rex working silently in the fields, back bowed, eyes focused and impossible to read. Or maybe they hadn't been. Maybe she'd just forgotten how. Unconsciously, her back straightened a tiny bit further. The door to the hangar slid open, and the overhead lights hummed to life. Ahsoka froze, her eyes immediately scanning Rex for a change in breathing that might indicate the light had disturbed him. No change. Reassured for the moment, she took a moment to adjust her grip on Rex's arm. She would never make it back to the ruins in time carrying him this way, but the speeder was on its last legs as it was-- it could barely make the trip in to Khoonda without falling apart these days, and the terrain that led to the ruins was uneven and rocky in places. Scanning the clutter of the hangar, her eyes settled on a small, metal sled in the far corner of the room. It was a repulsor powered sled that she'd seen Rex use to collect and transport damaged harvesting droids from the fields for repair. It was a long, concave surface, probably just large enough to transport a man, with a long bar at one end designed to enable the user to guide the device. It wasn't perfect, but it was going to have to do.

Ahsoka dragged Rex towards the repulsor sled, reaching out with the Force experimentally to switch the device on. The gesture was clumsy and unfocused but it did the job, and the sled rose silently, stopping in its ascent a few feet above the ground. Taking a breath to steady herself, Ahsoka halted beside it and let the Force dance across her fingers and around Rex. Cautiously, she guided it, allowing herself to release her grip on him as she felt the Force catch him. For a moment, it was all she could do to hold him, suspended. And then, the sparks within her catching fire, she lifted him gently and set him down on the floating platform's bed. Her hand trembled as she wiped sweat from her forehead, but she steadied it by grasping the sled's bar.

"Good thing... you're asleep, Rexy," she muttered, swinging the bulk of the sled around and guiding a Force push towards the door release switch on the opposite wall of the hangar. Still shaky, but the push found its mark slightly faster nonetheless. "You'd never forgive me for dumping you in this thing if you were conscious."

Ducking under the still-opening door, Ahsoka leaned against the sled, guiding it into the darkness. Despite her exhaustion, she felt a power in her steps again as her feet found the path again. The crisp morning surrounded her, and she was startled when she seemed to feel it _breathe._ It was so familiar, the way her consciousness seemed to extend beyond her. Her body was no longer the ferrocrete tomb she'd built for herself, but it was the echoes of the world that surrounded her that resonated within her again that left her breathless. Before her, the path wound its way up into the darkness. Ahsoka could feel ripples and distortions surrounding Rex despite his unconscious state, but the sensation was difficult to comprehend. She'd learned to sense the Force surrounding so many forms of life, and she'd become familiar with Rex's presence. Each of the clones she'd come to know had unique presences, but she'd come to appreciate his as she learned to work alongside him. It had always calmed her and given her focus, but the disruptions she felt around him now were foreign and chaotic. She tightened her grip on the bar, willing herself to move faster.

Rationally, the quality of the light as it dimly illuminated the approaching ruins indicated to Ahsoka that relatively little time had elapsed. She had made the round trip quickly, all things considered, and she was distantly aware that dawn was nearly breaking. She could have sworn that Rex stirred as she started her approach towards the silhouetted ruins, and she placed an uncertain hand on his forehead, wishing it could smooth the distortions away. It was probably useless, but it was all she could think to do.

"Exile?"

Her voice sounded hollow and distant in her own mind, as though it was being transmitted across the galaxy. The word echoed for a moment as it reverberated through the ruins, and then fell silent. No response. Biting her lower lip, Ahsoka closed the distance between herself and the pathway she'd taken to reach the stone circle, weighing her options. Something didn't feel right. She perched on a boulder to catch her breath for a moment and considered what she knew. The Exile had told her that this place was once a Jedi enclave, and that the stone circle had been a council chamber. That made sense, and given the Exile's connection to this place, it was unsurprising that she appeared so clearly. The Force was strong in these ruins, and it gave her form. Taking her eyes from Rex for a moment, she scanned the rubble for a moment, trying to jog her memory. The stories Master Nu had told her had been really only that -- stories. This enclave had been abandoned for thousands of years, and that was enough time for any story to take on a mythic quality. Still, she mused, there were certain things which she could safely assume. The Exile had mentioned that the chambers in which the Prodigal Knight's mind had been reforged were somewhere beneath the remains of the council chambers. An operation of that kind would have required deep concentration and a reasonable amount of secrecy -- the chamber would be somewhere protected, deep underground. The idea of dragging Rex through the catacombs of an ancient and unstable ruin didn't fill her with confidence, especially with her connection to the Force still healing, but it was her only choice. She would have to be good enough.

_Are you ready, Little Exile?_

The sudden voice startled her, but surprise faded to relief almost immediately.

"I am."

The Exile's ghost stood motionless over Rex, her face impassive.

_His conflict is powerful, unnatural. If you are to restore his balance, we must move quickly. Come with me._

Ahsoka slipped away from her perch on the boulder and took up her place at the repulsor sled's bar.

"Lead the way."

Without another word, the Exile turned and glided around the outskirts of the ruins. Ahsoka moved quickly behind her, trying to keep her eyes trained to the faint blue form in the reddish light of daybreak. She still wasn't entirely certain she could trust the Exile. She'd been warned about the Dark Side, the way it corrupted those who were hopeless and desperate when they saw no other way. She still didn't know who the Exile had been in life. Why had she been exiled? And why had she returned? Dantooine's sun was just beginning to crest over the plains, bathing the ruins in a deep crimson glow. As Ahsoka rounded a corner, she could see the ghost of the Exile waiting for her ahead, barely perceptible in the light. Behind her, nestled in the rubble, was a narrow, dark opening. As Ahsoka moved closer, she could see that the opening was not simply a gap in the rocks. Its edges were too uniform, and despite the weathering they had taken over the years, Ahsoka could still make out faint carvings on the two slabs that were wedged a few feet apart. It had been a door once.

_This door leads to the interior of the enclave. Follow me, and be vigilant. Those who built this structure were wise, but even the most innovative constructions cannot withstand time and weather forever. I will lead you as far as the chamber. The Force is still powerful there, and while I do not know the techniques to heal your Soldier, I may help you reach those who do._

"You mean... the old council? The ones who redeemed the Prodigal Knight? But... they're dead! How can they help Rex if they're dead?"

_They are as dead as I am, Little Exile,_ she agreed solemnly, _but I sense that this will not be the greatest obstacle you will face in securing their help. Now, come._

The spirit turned to go, and Ahsoka followed, giving Rex's shoulder a gentle squeeze even though she was well aware the gesture was more for herself than it was for him. Standing on the threshold of the doorway, she took one final look at the rising sun before returning her gaze to the gloom of the Enclave's interior.

"Exile... why are you helping me?"

The moment of silence that followed seemed deafening, but the response came through at last.

_Because I share more than just a sentence of exile with you. I bore the wound that you bear once. They told me it was weakness, that it would destroy me. But it did not. I bore the pain of my injury alone for so long, but in the end, I was never truly alone. And neither are you._

If it was a trick, it was one she couldn't detect. Ahsoka felt no malevolence from the Exile, and at this point, she needed to believe the words the ghost spoke. Giving the repulsor sled a gentle nudge, she stepped into the darkness of the enclave, following the glow of the Exile. Reaching out with the Force once more, she sensed her way carefully through the cavernous hallway, using the power that flowed through her to amplify her echolocation. The reverberations caused by her footsteps were subtle, but they gave her a rough idea of where the walls rose around here, and perhaps more importantly, where they had collapsed. Ahsoka felt the gentle slope of the pathway beneath her, and the gradual drop in ambient temperature that suggested that they were moving deeper underground. There were traces of small lifeforms here are there:  she could feel them flicker in the Force as they moved, but she sensed that they were harmless -- probably just rodents that had found their way into the tunnels for shelter. She could no longer see Rex despite his position right before her, but his state remained the same. Absently, one hand drifted to the pocket she'd tucked the sedative ampule into, feeling reassured at its presence. If he woke, she would have just one chance to sedate him for the procedure... whatever that involved.

The Exile was waiting for her, and it appeared as though the ghost's faint glow illuminated another door. Ahsoka moved around the repulsor sled until she was standing right in front of the surface, and placed her hand carefully on the cool, smooth stone. It felt as though it was in one piece, although she couldn't be certain that moving it open would be safe for the structural integrity of the building. She had no idea how far underground they now were, and the way the rubble had eroded and shifted, the slightest movement could cause a cave-in. She could feel the Exile's gaze upon her, watching her without comment. Setting her jaw in determination, Ahsoka gave the doors an experimental nudge. She could hear the ancient mechanisms grind, and she blinked as a layer of dust dislodged itself from the seam of the door and stung her eyes. The doors certainly were heavy, but they'd moved. She only needed to open them wide enough to bring the repulsor sled through, no wider than her arms length. The Force eddied in her fingertips at her command, and extending outward, she found her mark, pushing the great doors slowly apart. She listened carefully to the sounds of the cavern, expecting at any moment to hear the groaning or cracking of rock and ancient metal under stress, but it did not come. Instead, she found herself squinting, her eyes struggling to adjust to a strange, luminescent glow that emanated from the other side of the doors.

"What in Space is _that_..."

The Exile smiled faintly and drifted effortlessly through the gap Ahsoka had made.

_It is the Force made manifest. Approach and see for yourself ._

Ahsoka returned to her place behind the sled and moved it through the door, letting her eyes adjust to the soft light on the other side. The walls and ceiling of the hallway beyond the door were encrusted with innumerable glowing crystals, each one giving off a distinct, shimmering glow. Ahsoka felt her breath catch in her throat for a moment as she took in the sparkling cavern, feeling a surge of warmth and life spread within her.

"Force crystals... there are so many of them..."

_This place has seen little disturbance for thousands of years, but the Force has remained powerful here even so, nourishing these crystals. Some have grown simply from the ambient Force that resonates here, but others embody the essence of moments, events, individuals._

"How much further is it to the chamber, Exile?"

Ahsoka could sense Rex's Force distortions changing and becoming more agitated as the moved into the room, and she was eager to get him to the chamber before he came to. She couldn't imagine this place was soothing for him in his current state -- even she was finding the presence of so many Force crystals unsettling. Not all of them were comforting presences, and some were making her feel particularly on edge.

_Not much further now._

_Glad she cleared that up,_ Ahsoka scowled to herself, following the Exile around another corner. The ground was sloping again, and in the light of the crystals, Ahsoka could see openings in the walls that branched away from the main corridor. Some of the smaller openings were barricaded with rubble, others continued on into darkness, and some simply terminated in barren little hollows that Ahsoka assumed had once been rooms. She wondered how large the enclave had been in its prime, what its students had been like. After thousands of years, she still felt the immense presence they had left behind, infused into the very foundation of the structure itself. Her mind drifted suddenly to the temple on Coruscant. She'd heard of the assault it had suffered. None had survived. Perhaps it would look like this someday. The thought chilled her, and she realised she'd been clutching the bar of the sled much tighter than she knew was necessary.

The branching tunnels and rooms had begun to thin, and with a final turn and downward slope, the hallway widened out, sweeping downwards and culminating in a pair of enormous metal doors. Unlike the rest of the architecture in the enclave's ruins, these doors appeared remarkably sturdy and unscathed, their Jedi design simple but effective. Large crystals spiked the walls and ceiling here, and in equal intervals along the sweep towards the doors, enormous crystal clusters erupted from what appeared to have once been stone plinths. Ahsoka realised that they must have grown from statues that once stood in their place. The Exile waited, suddenly seeming small before the large, dark doors, and Ahsoka picked her way down the slope until she stood just before the flickering spectre.

_We have arrived, Little Exile. This is the chamber in which the Prodigal Knight was restored. There are echoes here that can guide you further than I can._

Ahsoka looked down at Rex, feeling the way his mind stirred and rebelled at the darkness he faced. He needed this. There was no other way now.

"I am ready."

Without a further word, the ghost bowed her head, extending a slender arm to indicate a sleek panel beside the door. Leaving Rex for a moment, Ahsoka moved closer to the panel, inspecting it carefully. It showed no signs of a switch or activation lever -- a precaution she assumed was designed as an extra level of security to prevent intruders. The Holocron library at the Temple had a similar door locking mechanism, but it required a very skilled Jedi to open. Ahsoka had never learned how to unlock the door herself. Uncertainly, she raised a hand to try and sense the mechanism, the Force an extension of her fingers. She wasn't entirely certain she'd be able to understand such an ancient mechanism, but she did her best to silence the doubts in her mind and focus on the subtle feedback she was receiving. Her mind had been difficult to tame since the beginning -- she remembered her old masters telling her time and again to be patient, to _listen._ Her own master had been as impulsive as she had been then, and in the wake of the war, she'd begun to understand that this hadn't always been an advantage. Still, he hadn't been her only source of instruction, and in the silence that followed the battles she'd known her whole life, she'd been grateful for the teachings of Yoda, Master Secura, Master Sinube, Master Plo, Master Kenobi... they'd often reminded her of patience, duty, and the strength that comes from the ability to be silent in body and mind. Fear never made a problem easier to solve -- it clouded the mind and made solutions seem impossibly distant. She reminded herself of this almost forcefully as she felt her way through the lock mechanism. Somewhere down the line, she'd shut that wisdom out. Having her ties to the Jedi and to the Force severed really had been like losing a sense. She'd always had a strong sense of direction, but the futility that had followed the death of those who had guided her had thrown her from her course for a time. Nothing would ever be the same, but perhaps that was for the best.

Closing her eyes, Ahsoka gently nudged the mechanism with the Force, feeling the resistance of ancient sliding parts loosening from their grooves. A few of the device's parts trembled under her pressure, and she eased up, nervous that she might break the lock. One small, fragile pin seemed to be all that remained in holding the lock shut. Biting her lip in concentration, she gently encircled the part with the Force and slid it upwards. Something clicked, and Ahsoka held her breath, fearing that she'd applied too much pressure. Without the ability to see the parts, she had to rely entirely on a sense that was only just returning. For a long and painful moment, there was no change in the mechanism. And then, a soft hiss. Cracking one eye open, Ahsoka exhaled as she watched the lock shift, dust trickling from the grooves as it picked up speed. A final click. The doors did not open. She sighed, not entirely surprised that this should be the case. The rest of the temple was in ruins, nothing more than hollowed caves and crumbling thresholds. Somehow, these doors had been built more securely, and time had worn them less than the rest of the structure. Still, it would have been a long shot for the opening mechanism to have remained intact. Bracing herself, Ahsoka reached out one more time, pushing the Force into the barely perceptible gap between the halves of the door. They were incredibly heavy, but she knew she only needed an opening wide enough for the repulsor sled.

"Come _on_..."

The door rasped in its groove, and small pieces of rubble dislodged from the ceiling as it slid apart. The gap was still relatively small, but moving the stone slabs was causing vibration and damage in a structure that was thousands of years old. If anything dislodged a vital part of the structure, the entire chamber could collapse. Ahsoka frowned and stopped pushing, wrapping her arms around herself and making her way back towards Rex. He was still unconscious as far as she could see, but the crystals that lit the chamber illuminated a fine sheen on his forehead, and she could see his jaw clenching and unclenching with a considerable amount of force. Pushing the repulsor sled gently towards the opening she'd made in the doorway, she could see that the gap was slightly too narrow for the sled. She knew she could get herself and Rex through the gap, but she hoped she wouldn't have much further to go on the other side. Sitting on the edge of the sled, Ahsoka moved Rex's legs gently, pulling him up into a sitting position. She wrapped an arm around his waist and gripped one of his arms tightly across her shoulders, bearing his weight as cautiously as she could manage. His head rolled forward, and she heard him groan through clenched teeth.

"Almost there, Rex, hang on..."

Focusing on each footstep, Ahsoka crossed the threshold into the chamber, moving sideways through the narrow gap and bringing Rex through beside her. The chamber was dark, and she halted just within the doorway, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dim light. The walls and surfaces of the room were black and faintly reflective, and the crystals in this room emanated a cold blue white light. The air felt thick, and Ahsoka felt as though she was under water, surrounded by an invisible but nonetheless stifling _presence_. Beside her, Rex tensed, stirring weakly. Ahsoka frowned, feeling his mental state shift and become more erratic.

"Not yet... don't wake up yet..."

Something that felt like a breeze played over Ahsoka's skin. In the darkness before her she could just make out a long table carved from the same glossy black material as the walls and ceilings. Reflected on its surface, low hanging crystals shed an eerie light on what must have been an operating table. It was a sort of medical bay, but aside from the table and the light of the room, the room seemed vast and void. If she hadn't known better, Ahsoka would have guessed that the table had been an altar. The resemblance disturbed her, but she was at a loss for a better plan. Moving forward, Ahsoka brought Rex to the edge of the table, easing him down onto the cold, smooth surface. In the pale light, he looked pallid and lifeless, but his ragged breathing was indication that he was closer to consciousness than she needed him to be. Suddenly, Ahsoka sensed the thickness in the air condensing, forming. The Force here was powerful, and heavy with emotion, memory, pain...

"...'Soka..."

She jolted, refocusing on Rex. He was awake, his eyes wide and unsettled. His fists were clenched, and the perspiration on his forehead remained. She could sense him fighting for control, and the sensation pained her.

"Where... are we? What... what's going on...?"

She placed a hand over his and opened her mouth to respond, but as she did so, the cavern's swirling energy manifested before her, settling from chaos into a human silhouette. Immediately, Ahsoka knew that this was not the ghost of the Exile. This form was clearly male, and the force of its presence gave her pause. The Exile had been comforting, but this ghost felt different. She felt resistance.

_This place has been sealed. Your presence is not welcome here. As guardian of this place, I must ask you to leave._

Ahsoka met his gaze squarely. He was the ghost of an older man with narrow eyes and a tight lipped scowl, yet by his dress, he'd been a jedi once himself, perhaps thousands of years ago. He was ancient and clearly powerful given his ability to appear to her this way, but she'd come too far to turn back now. Around him, in the darkness, she sensed other presences watching -- less physically distinct, but no less powerful. They seemed to be speaking all at once, but their voices were difficult to discern. She focused on the man's ghostly figure, doing her best to ignore the growing murmur from the void.

"I am sorry to disturb you, but I need your help. My friend needs your help..."

"Ahsoka, what... what is..." Rex breathed, his voice hoarse as he struggled to focus. Ahsoka tightened her grip on his hand, hoping he'd feel comforted despite his condition.

_I can sense what you've come for, but I cannot help you. Once this room repaired a damaged mind, but at unimaginable cost to the galaxy. The procedure, despite its perfect performance, ultimately failed. Where we were a council of masters, you are but one failed padawan. This power would overwhelm you and destroy him. That is an illogical risk to take._

_Your estimation of others fails you in death as it did in life, Master._

Ahsoka turned to find the Exile had materialized at her side, her gaze fixed on the male ghost. The Exile's presence was calm, but just as unyielding as her Master's .

_You assume this learner's motivation is power, as you once assumed was mine. You fail to see that it is compassion behind her actions, not greed._

_What she seeks requires mastery of the Force's subtlest flows. There is a recklessness in her that cannot be tamed, and emotions are her weakness. She yields to them. This is the kind of weakness that the darkness preys upon. She is no Jedi._

_Compassion is the heart of the Jedi, Master. In life you thought it a weakness. You saw it in me, too, but your condemnation was your own undoing. Her compassion is the crystal. This place must supply her with the blade._

The male Jedi did not answer immediately, his face drawn in an expression that mirrored one Ahsoka assumed he must have often worn in life. Her heart was pounding forcefully, and she kept her eyes fixed on him, hope aching in her chest. She could bear it no longer.

"Master... forgive me. I know I still have a long way to go, that I'm not really... even a Jedi anymore... but I will always be a learner, and right now, Rex depends on that. My use of the Force may not be perfect, but... but I've learned so much about silence. I am willing to still my mind and follow your guidance. I'm willing to do whatever it takes. _Please_ , just... help me help Rex..."

The Exile stood beside her, her silhouette seeming suddenly brighter and more powerful.

_Compassion, Master. The heart of the Jedi. Do not bar another from life because you refuse to see its strength._

The male Jedi's face changed almost imperceptibly, seeming to soften for a moment in silence. His gaze did not leave the Exile as he turned slowly towards Ahsoka.

_Meetra Surik. Death has only made your essence stronger. Thousands of years ago, the Jedi council exiled you because we feared what we did not then comprehend. You defied us, fought in wars we did not agree with...but what you did, you did out of compassion. It was your strength after all. And now you bring before me another. Ahsoka Tano. Do you know who I am?_

"I'm sorry, Master. I don't recognise you..."

He smiled, for a moment seeming satisfied.

_That is just as well, perhaps. I was once Master Vrook Lamar, during the Mandalorian War and the Jedi Civil War. Meetra was once a student of our council, powerful in the ways of the Force. I felt her strength, but I did not understand it. She went to war to protect those who could not protect themselves, but my fear blinded me. All I saw was disobedience. We exiled her... she was not the first student I failed..._

Feeling a sharp pressure on her hand, Ahsoka could see that Rex's eyes were glazed and clouded. His hand was cold, fingers pressing into her skin like durasteel. She could hear him starting to mutter again, but she tried not to hear the words, her free hand fumbling for the ampule of sedative she'd brought with her. She willed her voice to be steady.

"Master Lamar, please... show me how to help him..."

For a moment, the ghost was silent. The other presences in the darkness grew louder, whispering and muttering, their words swirling around them. Ahsoka reminded herself to breathe.

_Administer the sedative._

Placing the device carefully on his neck, Ahsoka depressed the ampule, letting the fluid force its way into Rex's bloodstream. Almost immediately, she could see his jaw go slack, his eyes drifting slowly shut as his grip on her hand loosened. She'd seen it happen this way so many times before, but they'd rarely ever woken. This time would be different. It had to be.

"Don't worry, Rexy," she murmured, setting the empty container aside. "I'll be here when you wake up..."

Ahsoka and Vrook were alone now, the darkness of the chamber threatening to engulf them. The glow of the Force crystals seemed to pulse with life, and Ahsoka felt the Force within her respond, reaching out, connecting, intertwining.

_The source of your friend's disturbance is organic, but it is not unprogrammable. I sense within him a presence that dictates the patterns of his brain. An organic chip. But this one seems erratic, unstable. Long ago, in this chamber, we re-wrote the mind of a Jedi with the Force. The principles are simple enough -- the brain is a carefully calibrated device. With precision, the Force can be used as a scalpel to sever faulty neural pathways... and graft new ones. You will use the Force to break the neural pathways between the chip and adrenaline production, as well as halt the flood of inhibitor chemicals which are keeping him from rational thought. The chip will be rendered inert._

Ahsoka's throat suddenly felt dry.

"That's... that's just calculated brain damage... we're talking about a cellular level of precision... any lack of restraint on my part at all and I could... he'd be..."

_You are the crystal, Padawan. Remember that. The blade comes not from you, but from the memories retained in this place. Your job is to remain still, and let the Force guide you. You must keep your mind silent. What you will see may make that task a challenge._

There was nothing more to be said. Ahsoka breathed deeply, forcing stray thoughts and anxieties from her body with each exhalation. They fought to return, but the reality of her situation left little room for doubt. _Do, or do not. There is no try._ Slowly, her eyes fell shut, the present dissolving around her in a blur of darkness. The chamber still surrounded her, but she saw it now in its former glory, its reflective surfaces bright with softly glowing light. On the table, another man lay unconscious, but despite  her careful focus, his features remained shrouded and indistinct. He was surrounded, a council of Jedi enfolding him deep in meditation. She felt the power of their stillness empty her until she felt hollow, disembodied. She was a channel.

The Jedi surrounding the table worked in unison, their hands flowing smoothly and ceaselessly as the Force eddied tangibly at their fingertips. Their fingers hovered over the man's head, seeming almost to graze his broken, bruised flesh as tiny pinpricks of energy flickered across the surface of his skin. Somewhere distant, as though she was viewing an ancient holorecording, she could sense her own body responding, moving synchronously with the masters she was observing. She was distant, unattached, and yet she could feel Rex's consciousness, somehow malleable between her fingers.

The man beneath the hands of the masters lurched, and Ahsoka felt them recoil as his mind rebelled, searing resistance coursing through their bodies. Beneath her own hands, conduits of thoughts and chemicals pulsed with life, a perfect chaos. Somewhere in the darkness, her body had closed its eyes, but of their own accord, her hands adjusted themselves by degrees. It was as though her entire universe had narrowed to a microscopic scale -- her Force crossed synaptic gaps and realigned cells, and she sensed each one as it moved and shifted. In this place, on the threshold of memory and reality, Ahsoka could not make sense of passing time. Her mind allowed the echoes of the past to resonate, and her body mimicked their patterns. Jolts of self awareness shook her as the memories played out -- the man in the visions had suffered devastation, and she felt his searing pain alongside Rex's, threatening to shatter the silence in her mind. And suddenly, she sensed it.

It was as if it was the only thing in the universe that existed. In her grasp, a swirling mass of chemical energy surged, embedded in a mesh of neural connections that ensured its influence over the delicate piece of equipment it controlled. She watched the masters move in unison somewhere in the Force's echoes, feeling her own body respond distantly. Carefully, with the guidance of the masters coursing through her, she began to dismantle the connections that gave the chip its power. Each one gave, an imperceptible, quiet shift. The tangle seemed eternal, each connection demanding singular focus, until suddenly, without fanfare, the last connection shifted out of alignment.

Ahsoka waited. In the echoes of the Force, she watched the injured man stir, his eyes fluttering momentarily with disturbing innocence for one so scarred. The masters stepped back together, lowering their hands and falling out of unison, watching carefully as the man's expression softened into a peaceful smile. The masters were not smiling, but they seemed at last at ease. Whoever the man had once been, he was no longer. The echoes slowly faded, and in his place, Rex was motionless on the cold, smooth surface. Moving closer, Ahsoka's breath hitched in her throat, her heart racing as she reached out one more time. The searing chaos that had torn at his mind was silent, and in its place, a gentle ebb and flow of emotions surrounded him. Perching lightly on the edge of the table, Ahsoka took his hand, holding it tightly, as though everything depended on it.

"...'Soka...?"

Cautiously, she lifted her eyes to his. His eyes opened and he blinked slowly, illuminated by the soft glow of the crystals. They were alone. The dryness in her throat returned, but she pushed through with determination.

"Rise and shine, Rexy... how're you feeling? You've... looked better."

"I've seen worse," he responded, his voice strained, but calm. One corner of his mouth pulled into a crooked smile for a moment, and he let his eyes fall shut again, settling into stillness.

She smiled, feeling laughter and tears force their way through her exhausted body simultaneously. His mind had stilled, the surging waves settling into the regular presence she'd come to know so well. It was ragged and rocky, but it was Rex. She suddenly felt the weight of the exhaustion she carried fill her, but it was nowhere near enough to dim the glow she felt wash through her.

"Rest easy. You earned it. It's... gonna be alright now."

 


End file.
